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SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

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SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN 
NOVEL 



BY 
FRANCES THERESA RUSSELL, Ph.D. 

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, STANFORD UNIVERSITY 



SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILL- 
MENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR 
THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHI- 
LOSOPHY IN THE FACULTY OF PHI- 
LOSOPHY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1920 

All rights reserved 



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Copyright, 1920, 
Bv THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published January, 1920. 



Gift 



VIRO DOCTISSIMO 

DAVID STARR JORDAN 

ET 
DIS MANIBUS 

GUILELMI JAMES 

SACRUM 

QUI MIHI TEMPORE MEO GRAVISSIMO, NOVA SUPPEDITANTES 

OFFICIA NOVAM VITM SEMITAM MONSTRAVERUNT 



PREFACE 

If the following monograph were to be presented from 
the point of view of a proponent, the author would be 
put triply on the defensive in relation to the theme. For, 
from one cause or another, the trio of terms in the title lies 
under a certain blight of critical opinion. 

Satire, being a thistle "pricked from the thorny branches 
of reproof," cannot expect to be cherished in the sensitive 
human bosom with the welcome accorded to the fair 
daffodil or the sweet violet. It must be content to be 
admired, if at all, from a safe distance, with the cold eye 
of intellectual appraisal. 

Victorianism has the distinction of being the only pe- 
riod in literature whose very name savors of the byword 
and the reproach. To be an Elizabethan is to be envied 
for the gift of youthful exuberance and an exquisite joy 
in life. To be a Queen Annian (if the phrase may be 
adapted) is to be respected for the accomplishments of 
mature manhood, — a dignified mein, ripened judgment, 
and polished wit. To be a Victorian — that indeed pro- 
vokes the question whether 'twere better to be or not to 
be. The chronological analogy cannot, however, be car- 
ried out, for the Victorian, whatever the cause of his 
unfortunate reputation, can hardly be accused of senility. 
On the contrary, the impression prevails that the startled 
ingenuousness, for instance, with which he opened his 
eyes at Darwin, Ibsen, and the iconoclasts in Higher Crit- 
icism; the vehemence with which he opposed and refuted 
and fulminated against everything hitherto undreampt 



Vlll PREFACE 

of in his philosophy; the complacency with which he 
viewed himself and his achievements, were attributes 
more appropriate to adolescence than to any later time ot 
life. Withal there was little of the grace and gayety of 
youth, and not much more of the poise and humor of 
manhood. That the Victorian was never at ease, in Zion 
or elsewhere, that he was prone to take himself and his 
disjointed times very seriously, without achieving a pro- 
portionate reformation, is a charge from which he never 
can be acquitted. To our modern authorities, especially 
such dictators as Shaw and Wells, contemplating him 
from the vantage ground of a higher rung in the ladder 
of civilization, the Victorian looks as Wordsworth did 
to Lady Blandish, like "a very superior donkey," pro- 
tected by the side-blinders of conventionality, saddled 
and bridled by authority, and ridden around in a circle 
by sentiment (most tyrannical of drivers), with much 
cracking of whip and raising of dust, but no real change of 
intellectual or spiritual locality. Nor can all the cavort- 
ing fun of Dickens, all the pungent playfulness of Thack- 
eray, all the sardonic gibes of Carlyle, all the grotesque 
gesturing of Browning, all the winged irony of George 
Eliot and Matthew Arnold, not even all the quips and 
cranks in Punch itself, avail to quash the indictment. 
The Victorian may be defended, appreciated, exonerated 
even; he may in time succeed in living it down. But to 
live it down is not quite the same as to have had nothing 
that had to be lived down. 

The Novel has been called the Cinderella of Literature. 
And it is true that while she may be useful, indispensable, 
a secret favorite of the whole family, no magic wand can 
give her the real enchantment of a caste that survives 
the stroke of twelve. She may act as the drudge to 



PREFACE IX 

fetch and carry our theories, or the playmate to amuse 
our idle hours, but she must be kept in her place, and 
her place is with neither the esthetic aristocracy of poetry 
nor the didactic patricianism of philosophy and criticism. 
She has, indeed, recently been fitted with a golden slipper, 
but her Prince hails from the Kingdom of Dollars, and 
his rank is recorded in Bradstreet instead of the Peerage. 

The indifferent or repellent nature of a subject, even 
though triple distilled, has nothing to do, however, with 
its value as a topic for investigation. I present this study 
neither as apologist nor enthusiast. If we expand Brown- 
ing's "development of a soul" to include the mental as 
well as the spiritual stages, as the poet himself did in 
actual practice, we must agree with him that "little else 
is worth study." So persistent and insistent in the mind 
of man has been, and still is, the satiric mood, so devoted 
has he been from immemorial ages to the habit of story- 
telling (and seldom for the mere sake of the story), so 
voluminous and emphatic did he become in the nine- 
teenth century, that no complete account of him can be 
rendered up until, amid the infinite variety of his aspects, 
he has been viewed as a Victorian satirist, using as his 
medium the English novel. 

Whatever the result of this observation may be, the 
process has been one of continual delight, tempered by 
despair; for one enters as it were a room of tremendous 
size not only full of curious and challenging objects (over- 
furnished perhaps), but supplied also with numerous doors 
opening into other apartments, and these ask an amount 
of time and attention which only the span of a Methuse- 
lah could place at one's disposal. 

It must be admitted, though, that it is a happier lot 
to stand before open doors, even in dismay at the illimi- 



X PREFACE 

table vistas, than to confront closed doors or none at all. 
And I wish in this connection to offer my tribute of ap- 
preciation and admiration to one who has preeminently 
the scholar's talisman of Open Sesame into the many and 
rich realms of literature. It was my good fortune to pre- 
pare this study under the direction of Professor Ashley H. 
Thorndike, of Columbia University, by whose benignly 
severe criticism so many students have profited, by whose 
sure taste and searching wisdom so many have been 
guided. To him, to his colleagues in the English Depart- 
ment, and to the other officers of the University who 
helped to make m.y term of residence the satisfaction it 
has been, it is a pleasure to express my gratitude. To 
my Stanford colleague. Miss Elisabeth Lee Buckingham, 
I am indebted for the drudgery of copy-reading, both in 
manuscript and in proof, and for many valuable sug- 
gestions. 

F. T. R. 



CONTENTS 

PART I 

PREMISES 
Chapter I 

THE SATIRIC SPIRIT 

PAGE 

Various interpretations because of various manifestations. Chief con- 
stituents, criticism and humor. Relation of these in the formula. Testi- 
mony of satirists as to the presence of humor, criticism being taken for 
granted. The satiric motive; temperamental cause and ethical intent. 
Testimony as to both. Symposium on the discrepancy between prospectus 
and performance. The realizable ideal. Objects: empiric data on vice, 
folly, and deception. Reason for universal criticism and ridicule of decep- 
tion. Criteria of good satire. DiflBculties, limitations, and real function. ... i 

Chapter II 

THE CONFLUENCE 

Relationship between satire and fiction. Ancient but incomplete and 
uneven alliance. Union in the nineteenth century. The Victorian nov- 
elists. Their chronology and background. Classification as satirists. 
Testimony of the novelists themselves as to satire 41 

PART II 

METHODS 
Chapter I 

THE ROMANTIC 

Possible methodic categories. Reason for present choice. Proportion of 
the romantic or fantastic type. Peacock and Butler. Lytton and Dis- 
raeli. Thackeray and Meredith. Characteristics of this form of satire: 
wit, invention, exaggeration, and concentration 59 



PART I 
PREMISES 



Satire in the Victorian Novel 



CHAPTER I 

THE SATIRIC SPIRIT 

"Are ye satirical, sir?" inquired the Ettrick Shepherd, 
warily suspicious of the cryptic eulogy just pronounced 
by his companion on the minds and manners of the English 
shopocracy. 

"I should be ashamed of myself if I were, James," was 
the grieved reply. 

We know very well, however, that Christopher North 
was not ashamed of himself, at least not with the true 
contrition that leads to reformation. On the contrary, 
we fear that he cherished and cultivated quite shamelessly 
his gift of caustic wit. In any case, whether the disavowal 
came from ironic whim or from a concession to the popular 
attitude toward satire, it illustrates the first difficulty con- 
fronting the student of this indeterminate subject. 

To recognize the satirical at sight, to know whether a 
man is telling the truth, either when he claims to be a 
satirist or when he disclaims the charge, is something of 
an accomplishment. For the complex and Protean na- 
ture of satire, varium et mutabile semper^ has naturally led 
to much disagreement not only as to its existence in cer- 
tain cases, but as to its justification in general. To 
its eulogist, usually the satirist himself, satire is an 
instrument of discipline with a divine commission, — a 



2 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

Scourge of God. To its apologist, usually the detached 
observer, it is a more or less dubious means to a more or 
less necessary end. To its disparager, usually the satir- 
ized, it is a wanton mischief-maker, superfluous and in- 
tolerable. The personal resentment of this last may be 
fortified by the convenient logic which identifies the agent 
with the cause. "People who really dread the daring, 
original, impulsive character which is the foundation of 
the satirical," says Hannay in one of his lectures on Satire, 
"ingenuously blame the satirist for the state of things 
which he attacks." 

These varieties of attitude toward satire arise not only 
from varieties in temperament and satirical experience, 
but from the diverse manifestations of satire itself. Take, 
for instance, those characters in literature which seem 
to be an incarnation of the satiric spirit. Thersites is the 
dealer in personalities, scoffing and gibing at the elite 
with the licensed audacity of the court fool. Reynard is 
the satirical rogue who not only perceives the weaknesses 
of his fellow citizens but turns them to his own advan- 
tage. Alceste is the misanthrope, "critic," as Meredith 
says, "of everybody save himself," but lifting his stric- 
tures out of the merely personal by attaching them to 
a general interpretation of life. The Hebrew Adversary 
is the cynic with a scientific zest for experiment. He 
impugns motives, fleers at fair appearances, prides him- 
self on his superior penetration, and questions the price 
for which a prosperous Job serves God. His loss of the 
wager through actual test of his theory has been taken 
as proof that such suspicions are unwarranted, and that 
the trust of the Divine Idealist in human nature was 
justified. This conclusion, however, must be qualified 
by the admission that the inductive process was con- 



THE SATIRIC SPIRIT 3 

ducted on limited data, and that if Eliphaz, Bildad, or 
Zophar had been chosen for the trial, the result might 
have been different. As it was, the final silence of the 
quenched satirist, and his absence from the happy end- 
ing may be construed as a sign of defeat in one instance 
that by no means invalidated his general attitude of 
doubt and interrogation. 

Of all these embodiments, however, the most perfect 
representation of the satiric spirit is a product of English 
genius. The melancholy Jaques has abundant slings 
and arrows of his own wherewith to retaliate for those 
of outrageous fortune, but he never fails to wing them 
with laconic wit and imperturbable humor. He expressly 
denies being guilty of personalities. 

"What woman In the city do I name, 
When that I say the city-woman bears 
The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders?'* 

He snubs with careless aplomb the too oratorical Orlando, 
and cannily avoids the too loquacious Duke. " I think of as 
many matters as he," he observes, "but I give heaven 
thanks, and make no boast of them." He reviews the career 
of man, and sees him proceeding with pretentious futility 
through his seven sad ages to an inglorious conclusion. 
And yet this philosopher admits his very pessimism to 
be something of a pose, and turns his humor reflexively 
against himself. All satirists have a fondness for sucking 
melancholy out of a song as a weasel sucks eggs; all are 
prone to rail at the first born of Egypt simply because 
they cannot sleep, but few have the honesty to acknowl- 
edge it. Meanwhile, although this courtier claims mot- 
ley as his only wear, his companions perceive the gen- 
uineness of his humanity and the value of his protests. 



4 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

"Thus most invectively he pierceth through 
The body of the country, city, court, 
Yea, and of this our life." 

And thus have diverse manifestations of the satiric 
spirit appeared from time to time. Few seem to be 
visible just at present, but we may be sure that the 
Spirit of Satire has not deserted our planet. Still is he 
busy walking up and down in the earth and going to 
and fro in it. Still does he probe and mock, sometimes 
with penetrative wisdom, sometimes in prejudice and 
error, but always as a challenge not to be ignored. 

Satire has not only embodied itself in certain charac- 
ters of literature, but has made and maintained for 
itself an important place in that realm. This place may 
be divided into two fairly distinct areas. The narrower 
one is known as formal satire, and has always been ex- 
pressed in verse: the Latin hexameter, the Italian terza 
rima, the French Alexandrine, the English heroic couplet. 
The larger and less definite section is formed by surcharg- 
ing with the satiric tone some other literary type. Such 
a combination is found in the Aristophanic comedy, the 
dialogues of Lucian, the romances of Rabelais, Cervantes, 
and Swift. Such also are T'he Rape of the Lock, Don Juan, 
'The Bigelow Papers^ Man and Superman^ and countless 
others. In addition to these there is a third estate, the 
largest and most heterogeneous, consisting of writings 
mainly serious, with a more or less pronounced satiric 
flavor. 

Any study, therefore, which tries to deal with satire 
as a mode rather than a form will profit by using the 
adjective instead of the noun. Without fully accepting 
the erasure of the old literary boundaries advocated by 
Croce, Spingarn, and the modern school, we may say 



THE SATIRIC SPIRIT 5 

that in this particular field at least, the substitution of 
the descriptive satiric for the categoric satire shows that 
discretion which is the better part of valor. Still, since 
to avoid the responsibility of deciding whether or not 
a given production is a satire, by the non-committal 
device of calling it satiric, is only to beg the question 
so far as a definition is concerned, it is advisable to pro- 
duce some identifying label. Stated in brief, satire is 
humorous criticism of human foibles and faults, or of 
life itself, directed especially against deception, and ex- 
pressed with sufficient art to be accounted as literature. 

When we say, however, that satire is a union of those 
two intangible, subjective elements, criticism and humor, 
we do not assume the equation 
fully to be expressed by the for- 
mula — Antagonism plus Amuse- 
ment equals Satire. For neither 
is all criticism humorous nor all 
humor critical. The relation is 
that of two circles, not coincident but overlapping. 

Confusion has arisen because, while the boundaries of 
the two separate circles are fairly distinct in our minds, 
the circumference made by their conjunction is merged in 
their respective planes. Accordingly, the term satire is 
sometimes used to denote humorless criticism, — which is 
really invective, denunciation, any sort of reprehension; 
and sometimes uncritical humor, — which is mere facetious- 
ness and jocularity. Not every prophet, preacher, or 
pedagogue is a satirist, nor yet every merry clown, or 
exuberant youth, or mild worldly-wiseman enjoying the 
blunders of innocent naivete. 

Professor Dewey reminds us that the ideal state of mind 
is "a nice balance between the playful and the serious*" 




6 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

But in the satiric circle a nice balance would be found 
only at the center. Wherever there are boundaries, 
there are always some sections of the enclosure nearer 
the margin than others. Thus, although satire is a com- 
pound, it does not follow that its fractions stand in a con- 
stant uniform ratio. On the contrary, the proportion 
ranges all the way from a minimum of humor in a Juvenal 
or a Johnson to a minimum of criticism in a Horace, 
a Gay, or a Lamb. Either quality may reach the vanish- 
ing point, but when it passes it, the remaining one can- 
not alone create satire, any more than oxygen or hydro- 
gen can be transformed into water. 

Nor can either quality be defined in other than psy- 
chological terms. The critical sense is rooted in the 
instincts of attraction and repulsion, the reaction of 
an organism to any new stimulus being pro or con ac- 
cording to the preestablished harmony or antagonism 
between them. As each human being grows to maturity 
by responding to experience, he acquires his individual 
set of opinions and ideals, largely borrowed from the 
habits and conventions of his groups, ethnic, social, and 
what not, with a small residue of his own originality. 
Equipped with this outfit of criteria he looks upon life 
and finds it complete or wanting, tests his fellow men 
and approves or condemns, examines all created things 
and calls them good or bad. But he is so constituted 
that his acquiescence is likely to be somewhat passive, 
and his protests active, his commendation grudging and 
qualified, his condemmation sweeping and thorough. 
Says an eighteenth century satirist, — ^ 

"Broad is the road, nor difficult to find, 
Which to the house of Satire leads mankind; 

^ Churchill, in The Author. 



THE SATIRIC SPIRIT 7 

Narrow and unfrequented are the ways, 

Scarce found out in an age, which lead to praise." 

The humorous sense is likewise an essence and an in- 
dex of disposition. The inadequacy of most definitions 
of the ludicrous, from Aristotle's "innocuous, unexpected 
incongruity," to Bergson's "mechanical inelasticity," 
lies in their concentration on the objective side of it, — the 
stimulus to mirth, — whereas the subjective, — the mirth- 
ful person, — deserves the emphasis. Laughter throws a 
far more illuminating ray on the laugher than the laughed 
at, for it indicates not only taste and mood but the trend 
of one's philosophy. In betraying a man's idea of the in- 
congruous, it implies his conception of the congruous, and 
reveals his whole coordination of life. We may, it is true, 
define humor by saying that intellectually it is a con- 
templation of life from the angle of amusement, and 
emotionally, a joyous effervescence over the absurdities 
in life ever present to the discerning eye; but we can never 
quite capture it, any more than pleasure or tragedy. We 
can, however, use these abstractions as refracted definers 
of character, by noting what sort of a man it is who re- 
gards such and such things as amusing, or delightful, or 
unendurable. For not only as a man thinks, but also as 
he laughs and exults and censures and suffers, so is he. 

That satire is woven from double strands, the blue of 
rebuke and the red of wit, — becoming thereby in a chro- 
matic sense the purple patch of literature, — is testified to 
by satiric theory as well as practice. The critical ele- 
ment may of course be taken for granted, but since it 
has been sometimes over-emphasized at the expense of the 
humorous, some testimony as to the latter must be given. 

It is to Horace that we are indebted not only for the 
first finished formal satire, but for the first attempt at 



8 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

an analysis of the then newest literary type. He sketches 
the history of satire as an exposure of crime, but insists 
that this mission may be performed with courtesy and 
the light touch, since even weighty matters are some- 
times settled more effectively by a jest than by grim 
asperity. 

*' Ridiculum acri 
Fortius et melius magnas plerumque secat res." ^ 

It is interesting to note that his own consistent practice 
in this matter is acknowledged by his successor Persius, 
who says of him, 

"Sportive and pleasant round the heart he played, 
And wrapt in jests the censure he conveyed." ^ 

When Jonson reintroduced the Aristophanic vehicle of 
comedy to carry his satire, though fashioned in a different 
style, he also re-voiced the Horatian satiric philosophy, 
promising realism, — such characters and actions as com- 
edy would choose, 

"When she would show an image of the times. 
And sport with human follies, not with crimes. 
Except we make 'hem such, by loving still 
Our popular errors, when we know they're ill. 
I mean such errors, as you'll all confess. 
By laughing at them, they deserve no less:" ^ 

A writer of the Restoration Period carries on the tradi- 
tion : 

^ Satires, I, lo, I J. 

2 Drummond's translation. A similar couplet is rendered by Evans, 
"He, with a sly, insinuating grace, 
Laugh'd at his friend, and look'd him in the face." 
* Preface to Every Man in his Humour. 



THE SATIRIC SPIRIT 9 

"Some did all folly with just sharpness blame. 
Whilst others laughed and scorned them into shame. 
But of these two, the last succeeded best, 
As men aim tightest when they shoot in jest." ^ 

The spokesman of the eighteenth century on this 
point is Young. 

"No man can converse much in the world but, at what he 
meets with, he must either be insensible, or grieve, or be angry, 
or smile. Some passion (if we are not impassive) must be 
moved; for the general conduct of mankind is by no means a 
thing indifferent to a reasonable and virtuous man. Now, 
to smile at it, and turn it into ridicule, I think most eligible; 
as it hurts ourselves least, and gives Vice and Folly the greatest 
offense. 

"Laughing at the misconduct of the world will, in a great 
measure, ease us of any more disagreeable passion about it. 
One passion is more effectually driven out by another than by 
reason." ^ 

And about the same time our first satirical novelist 
was avowing his own creed and performance: 

"If nature hath given me any talents at ridiculing vice and 
imposture, I shall not be indolent, nor afraid of exerting them." ^ 

Again: "I have employed all the wit and humour of which 
I am master in the following history; wherein I have endeav- 
oured to laugh mankind out of their favorite follies and vices." ^ 

^ Essay on Satire, by the Duke of Buckingham: Dryden's Works, XV, 20i. 

2 Young: Preface to the Seven Satires. 

' Fielding: Historical Register: Dedication to the Public, III, 341. 

* Fielding: Tom Jones: Dedication to George Lyttleton, VI, 5. 

He also says, in The Covent Garden Journal: "Few men, I believe, do more 
admire the works of those great masters who have sent their satire (if I may use 
the expression) laughing into the world. Such are the great triumvirate, Lucian, 
Cervantes, and Swift." 



lO SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

The self-conscious nineteenth century is full of com- 
ments on this topic, as on all others, but two or three 
representative ones will suffice as examples. 

It is not really the great Greek satirist but his modern 
interpreter who utters this explanatory sentiment: 

"Now, earnestness seems never earnest more 
Than when it dons for garb — indifference; 
So, there's much laughing: but, compensative, 
When frowning follows laughter, then indeed 
Scout innuendo, sarcasm, irony!" ^ 

Finally, turning to the encyclopedia for a modern offi- 
cial pronouncement, we find humor again cited as a sine 
qua non.^ 

"Satire in its literary aspect may be defined as the expression 
in adequate terms of the sense of amusement or disgust excited 
by the ridiculous or unseemly, provided that humor is a dis- 
tinctly recognisable element, and that the utterance is invested 
with literary form. Without humor, satire is invective; with- 
out literary form, it is mere clownish jesting. * * * This 
feeling of disgust or contempt may be diverted from the 
failings of man individual to the feebleness and imperfection 
of man universal, and the composition may still be a satire; 
but if the element of scorn or sarcasm were entirely eliminated 
it would become a sermon." 

The matter of ingredients is more easily disposed of, 
however, than that of causation. It is obviously easier 
to scrutinize a finished product and see what it is made 
of than to go back to its origin and discover why it was 
made. For the latter process leads us to the domain of 
motives, that shadowy realm where the real is often made 
to hide behind the assumed or at least the instinctive 

^ Browning: Aristophanes' Apology. ^ Garnett, in the Enc. Brit. 9th edition. 



THE SATIRIC SPIRIT . II 

kept down by the acquired. In this mental kingdom 
many an impulsive little prince has been smothered by a 
deliberative, ambitious usurper who felt a call to rule. 

In the province of satire the real internal stimulus is 
temperament. If a man has a critical disposition, he is 
bound to criticise. If he has a keen sense of humor, he 
will be alive to the absurd. If he possesses both, he is a 
natural-born satirist and cannot escape his manifest des- 
tiny, — so long as he is not inarticulate. But the declared 
motives are for the most part ethical and altruistic, a 
lineage much more presentable and worthy of high com- 
mand. 

This human tendency to justify its instinctive behavior 
by ex post facto morality has produced an impressive 
symposium on the thesis that satire has a definite pur- 
pose and moreover a noble one. Thus while the satirist 
admits his malice aforethought, he protests that the mali- 
cious suffers a sea change into the beneficent, for that 
he must be cruel only to be kind. The modest and honest 
confession of Horace ^ that he wrote satire because he 
had to write something and was not equal to epic, was 
soon supplanted by the Juvenalian declaration of saeva 

1 "Wolves use their teeth against you, bulls their horn; 

Why, but that each is to the manner born?" Satires, I, i. Conington, 46. 
Some modern echoes are heard. Says Byron, — 

"Satiric rhyme first sprang from selfish spleen; 
You doubt — see Dryden, Pope, St. Patrick's Dean." 

Hints from Horace. 
Taine applies his general theory to this instance: 

"No wonder if in England a novelist writes satires. A gloomy and reflective 
man is impelled to it by his character; he is still further impelled by the sur- 
rounding manners." Hist, of Eng. Lit. IV, 166. 

In Shaw's An Unsocial Socialist, one character says of another: "Besides, 
Gertrude despises everyone, even us. Or rather, she doesn't despise anyone 
in particular, but is contemptuous by nature, just as you are stout." 



12 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

indignatioj and it is from this perennial spring that a 
steady flow of eulogy has irrigated the history of satire. 
A representative of the Elizabethan group is Marston: ^ 

"I would show to be 
Tribunus plehis, 'gainst the villainy 
Of those same Proteans, whose hypocrisy 
Doth still abuse our fond credulity." 

Milton manages here as elsewhere to sound a clarion 
note over the clash of seventeenth century partisanship: ^ 

"A taste for delicate satire cannot be general until refinement 
of manners is general likewise; till we are enlightened enough 
to comprehend that the legitimate object of satire is not to 
humble an individual, but to improve the species. * * * 
For a satire as it is born out of a tragedy so it ought to resemble 
its parentage, to strike high, to adventure dangerously at the 
most eminent vices among the greatest persons." 

Defoe ^ echoes Dryden,^ both speaking with reasonable 
consistency; and even Pope ^ tries to make out a case for 
himself. But the completest paean is from the pen of 
John Brown.^ His poetic analysis begins at the beginning: 

"In every breast there bums an active flame, 
The love of glory, or the dread of shame: 
The passion one, though various it appear. 
As brighten'd into hope, or dimm'd by fear. 

^ Scourge of Villainy. 

^ Apology for Smectymnuus. 

^ "The end of Satire is reformation." Preface to The Trueborn Englishman. 

* "The true end of Satire is the amendment of vices by correction." Preface 
to Absalom and Achitophel. 

^ "Now the author, hving in these times, did conceive it an endeavour worthy 
an honest satirist, to dissuade the dull, and punish the wicked, in the only way 
that was left." Preface of Martinus Scriblerus to The Dunciad. 

* An Essay on Satire. Occasioned by the death of Pope. Inscribed to Dr. 
Warburton. In Dodsley's Collection of Poems, Vol. III. 



THE SATIRIC SPIRIT I3 

Thus heav'n in pity wakes the friendly flame, 
To urge mankind on deeds that merit fame: 
But man, vain man, in folly only wise, 
Rejects the manna sent him from the skies:" 

The climax of this human error is perverted ambition 
and a snobbish idea of excellence: 

"The daemon Shame paints strong the ridicule. 
And whispers close, 'the world will call you fool!' 

Hence Satire's pow'r: 'tis her corrective part 
To calm the wild disorders of the heart. 
She points the arduous heights where glory lies, 
And teaches mad ambition to be wise: 
In the dark bosom wakes the fair desire. 
Draws good from ill, a brighter flame from fire; 
Strips black Oppression of her gay disguise. 
And bids the hag in native horror rise; 
Strikes tow'ring pride and lawless rapine dead. 
And plants the wreath on Virtue's awful head. 

Nor boasts the Muse a vain imagin'd pow'r, 
Though oft she mourns those ills she cannot cure. 
The worthy court her, and the worthless fear; 
Who shun her piercing eye, that eye revere. 
Her awful voice the vain and vile obey. 
And every foe to wisdom feels her sway. 
Smarts, pedants, as she smiles, no more are vain; 
Desponding fops resign the clouded cane: 
Hush'd at her voice, pert Folly's self is still, 
And Dulness wonders while she drops her quill." 

The author's optimism mounts even to the disparage- 
ment of Force, Policy, Religion, Mercy, and Justice, in 
comparison with this puissant and impeccable goddess, 
in whose presence the wicked never cease from trem- 
bling, — especially stricken when she draws 



14 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

"Her magic quill, that like Ithuriel's spear 
Reveals the cloven hoof, or lengthen'd ear; 

Drags the vile whisperer from his dark abode, 
'Till all the daemon starts up from the toad." 

Feeling perhaps that after all his client's status is a trifle 
dubious, her advocate continues with a caution and a cli- 
max: 

"Who combats Virtue's foe is Virtue's friend; 
Then judge of Satire's merit by her end: 
To guilt alone her vengeance stands confin'd. 
The object of her love is all mankind." 

The sober eighteenth century brings us back to reality 
with a characteristic comment by the best satirist of the 
period, who admires his favorite predecessors, "not in- 
deed for that wit and humour alone which they all so emi- 
nently possessed, but because they all endeavoured, with 
the utmost force of their wit and humour, to expose and 
extirpate those follies and vices which chiefly prevailed in 
their several countries." ^ 

But Gifford, akin in spirit to the satirist he translated, 
goes to the extreme in taking the satiric office seriously: 

"To raise a laugh at vice * * * Js not the legitimate 
office of Satire, which is to hold up the vicious as objects of 
reprobation and scorn, for the example of others, who may be 
deterred by their suiFerings." ^ 

De Quincey carries the tradition over into the nineteenth 
century by reminding us that " the satirist has a reforma- 
tive as well as a punitive duty to discharge." Meredith ^ 
agrees that "the satirist is a moral agent, often a social 

1 Fielding: Covent Garden Journal. 

* Preface to the Translation of Juvenal. 

^ Essay on Comedy, 76. 



THE SATIRIC SPIRIT I5 

scavenger, working on a storage of bile." Symonds ^ af- 
firms that "Without an appeal to conscience the satirist 
has no locus standi.** Browning has Balaustion say to 
Aristophanes: 

"Good Genius! Glory of the poet, glow 
O' the humorist who castigates his kind, 
Suave summer-lightning lambency which plays 
On stag-homed tree, misshapen crag askew. 
Then vanishes with unvindictive smile 
After a moment's laying black earth bare, 
Splendor of wit that springs a thunderball — 
Satire — to burn and purify the world. 
True aim, fair purpose; just wit justly strikes 
Injustice, — right, as rightly quells the wrong. 
Finds out in knaves', fools', cowards' armory 
The tricky tinselled place fire flashes through. 
No damage else, sagacious of true ore." 

And Dawson ^ brings satiric utilitarianism into the pres- 
ent century: 

"It is quite beside the mark to say that we do not like satire. 
It is equally beside the mark to say that we have never known 
such a world as this. The thing to be remembered is that in 
all ages the satirist of manners has been of the utmost service 
to society in exposing its follies and lashing its vices. It is the 
work of a great satirist to apply the caustic to the ulcers of 
society; and if we are to let our dislike of satire overrule our judg- 
ment, we shall not only record our votes against a Juvenal and 
a Swift, but equally against the whole line of Hebrew prophets." 

All these citations refer more or less directly to the 
cause — the reason or motive for satirical utterance — but 
have some bearing on the effect — the tangible result of 
it, — since the two are to a certain extent inseparable. 

1 The Renaissance in Italy, V, 270. ^ Makers of English Fiction, 86. 



l6 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

They are, however, also distinct, and particularly so in 
this case; as cause is a psychological and hidden thing, and 
effect is more external and visible. In turning from the 
first to the second we pass from deductive argument to in- 
ductive. The logic of the former is an Idol of the Tribe, 
particularly of the British tribe, unable to rest until every- 
thing has been drafted under the ethic flag and brought 
into the moral fold. We pass also from spacious promise 
to rather cramped and meager performance. Satiric in- 
tent looms as large as the imposing first appearance of the 
giant of Destiny, in Maeterlinck's Betrothal^ satiric accom- 
plishment shrinks to the size of his exit as the babe in arms. 
And while the assertion of inexorability and omnipotence 
is continued bravely to the end, albeit in a voice of quav- 
ering diminuendo, a counter voice is also heard, repudiat- 
ing extravagant claims. 

Both attitudes are expressed in turn by an eighteenth 
century satirist. In his Epistle to William Hogarth 
Churchill exclaims, 

"Can Satire want a subject, where Disdain, 
By virtue fired, may point her sharpest strain ? 
Where, clothed in thunder, Truth may roll along, 
And Candour justify the rage of song?" 

But in The Candidate, he announces reform of his former 
practices, in a series of rhetorical "Enoughs," coming to 
a climax in — 

"Enough of Satire — in less hardened times 
Great was her force, and mighty were her rhymes." 

In his own degenerate days, however, — 

** Satire throws by her arrows on the ground, 
And if she cannot cure, she will not wound. 
Come, Panegyric," * * * 



THE SATIRIC SPIRIT IJ 

In The Author he asks, "Lives there a man whom Satire 
cannot reach?" And the author of English Bards and 
Scotch Reviewers declares that vice and folly will — 

"More darkly sin, by Satire kept in awe, 
And shrink from ridicule, though not from law." 

But Marston and Defoe, already quoted on the other 
side, have their dubious moments. Says the former,^ 

"Now, Satire, cease to rub our galled skins, 
And to unmask the world's detested sins; 
Thou shalt as soon draw Nilus river dry 
As cleanse the world from foul impiety." 

And the latter ^ would be sanguine if he could : 

"If my countrymen would take the hint and grow better- 
natured from my ill-natured poem, as some call it, I would say 
this of it, that though it is far from the best satire that ever was 
written, it would do the most good that ever satire did." 

Gifford ^ also, though a believer in the mission of satire, 
admits that "to laugh at fools is superfluous, and at the 
vicious unwise." 

Cowper ^ allows minor accomplishments: 

* Scourge of Villainy, Satire II. 

^ Preface to The Trueborn Englishmen. 

^ Preface to his translation of Aristophanes. 

* The Task: The Time-Piece. 

His object is to point out the superiority of the preacher, who steps in 
"* * * when the sat' rist has at last 
Strutting and vaporing in an empty school, 
Spent all his force and made no proselyte." 

Later, however, he inadvertently admits even clerical insufficiency: 
"Since pulpits fail, and sounding boards reflect 
Most part an empty ineffectual sound, 
What chance that I, to fame so little known, 
Nor conversant with men or manners much. 
Should speak to purpose, or with better hope 
Crack the satiric thong.?" (From The Garden). 



l8 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

"Yet what can satire, whether grave or gay? 
It may correct a foible, may chastise 
The freaks of fashion, regulate the dress, 
Retrench a sword-blade, or displace a patch; 
But where are its sublimer trophies found ? 
What vice has it subdu'd ? whose heart reclaim'd 
By rigour, or whom laugh'd into reform ? 
Alas! Leviathan is not so tam'd; 
Laugh'd at, he laughs again; and, stricken hard, 
Turns to the strike his adamantine scales, 
That fear no discipline of human hands." 

Young ^ grants it a fighting chance: 

"But it is possible that satire may not do much good; men 
may rise in their affections to their follies, as they do to their 
friends, when they are abused by others. It is much to be 
feared that misconduct will never be chased out of the world 
by satire; all, therefore, that is to be said for it is, that miscon- 
duct will certainly never be chased out of the world by satire, 
if no satires are written. Nor is that term unapplicable to 
graver compositions. Ethics, Heathen and Christian, and the 
scriptures themselves, are, in a great measure, a satire on the 
weakness and iniquity of men; and some part of that satire is 
in verse, too. * * * Nay, historians themselves may be 
considered as satirists and satirists most severe; since such are 
most human actions, that to relate is to expose them." 

The distrust of the moderns is adequately voiced by 
Sidgwick: ^ 

"Satire is the weapon of the man at odds with the world and 
at ease with himself. The dissatisfied man — a Juvenal, a 
Swift, a youthful Thackeray — belabors the world with vocif- 

* Preface to The Universal Passion. 

The last part of the passage anticipates our discussion of satire as exposure. 

^ Essays on Great Writers: Some Aspects of Thackeray. 



THE SATIRIC SPIRIT I9 

erous indignation, like the wind on the traveller's back, the 
beating makes it hug its cloaking sins the tighter. Wrong 
runs no danger from such chastisement. * * * Satire is 
harmless as a moral weapon. It is an old-fashioned fowling 
piece, fit for a man of wit, intelligence, and a certain limited 
imagination. It runs no risk of having no quarry; the world 
to it is one vast covert of lawful game. It goes a-travelling 
with wit, because both are in search of the unworthy." 

Two comments on Aristophanes illustrate the pro and 
con of satiric accomplishment. Cope, in the Preface to his 
translation, remarks: 

"He felt it his duty to do all he could to counteract the in- 
creasing influence of Euripides upon the rising generation, and 
knowing the power of ridicule, he employs this weapon con- 
stantly and mercilessly; but he is careful not to injure his own 
cause by exaggerated caricature, which might have created 
sympathy for the object of his censure." 

But White, while warning us against regarding the drama- 
tist as either " a mere moralist or a mere jester," judges by- 
record: ^ 

"If Aristophanes was working for reform, as a long line of 
learned interpreters of the poet have maintained, the result 
was lamentably disappointing; he succeeded in effecting not 
a single change. He wings the shafts of his incomparable wit 
at all the popular leaders of the day — Cleon, Hyperbolus, 
Peisander, Cleophon, Agyrrhius, in succession, and is reluctant 
to unstring his bow even when they are dead. But he drove 
no one of them from power." 

Yet after due deduction has been made. Satire has left 
to it an asset of considerable net value; an influence that 
may be subjective if not objective, general if not specific, 

1 Introduction to Croiset's Aristophanes and the Political Parties at Athens. 



20 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

and artistic if not rampantly ethical. As an instrument of 
self criticism, whereby a man may be saved from making 
a solemn pompous fool of himself, as an antitoxin to van- 
ity, a solvent of sentimentality, a betrayer of hypocrisy, 
satire may find all the mission it needs to be respectable; 
and if it can also acquire a degree of grace and comeliness, 
it may be listed among the muses. 

Now this spirit of humorous criticism, sprung from in- 
nate prejudice, nurtured by penetrating observation, en- 
listed at least nominally under the banner of righteous- 
ness, and out for conquest, obviously must have some- 
thing to conquer; — whether he is a soldier fighting an 
enemy alien, or a roving knight, bound to offer combat on 
chivalric grounds, though aware in his candid heart that 
the surpassing loveliness of his lady is a claim gallantly to 
be maintained rather than an incontrovertible fact. In 
either case, whether he uses archery or artillery, he must 
have a target; and a student of his tactics must under- 
stand what it is, even better perhaps than he does himself. 

Taken individually, the objects of satiric attack are le- 
gion, being no fewer than all such victims of human dis- 
pleasure as may suitably come in for jesting rebuke. Our 
only chance for any sort of synthesis is to see first if these 
individuals may be grouped into classes, and next, if these 
classes may be generalized under some principle, dis- 
covered to be under some supreme command. 

The grouping is indeed easily discernible. Political 
parties stand out, social strata, various professions and in- 
stitutions and movements. But to look upon these as 
ridiculed for themselves is to be satisfied with a superficial 
view. The fault is not in themselves but in their stars that 
they are underlings. What are these evil stars that seem 
in their courses to fight against them? 



THE SATIRIC SPIRIT 21 

The terms oftenest on the Hps of satirists and historians 
of satire are Vice and Folly. But these fine large entities 
are taken at their face value and given a conventional in- 
terpretation. We are not enlightened as to what vice and 
folly are, and can define them only as those things which 
seem vicious and foolish to their several opponents. They 
also are among the bafflling subjectivities. 

Juvenal's conclusion that it is hard not to write satire, 
from the premise that the number of fools is infinite, is said 
by Herford to be " the fundamental axiom of all satire." 
But as a matter of fact, it was Horace who took the fool 
for his province, while his sterner successor rather special- 
ized on the knave. From then on there has been as little 
endeavor to disentangle the two strands as to define 
them. 

One of the earliest English satirists ^ emphasised the 
knavery; and another ^ includes that and folly in the same 
indictment. Dryden,^ inclined to the serious Juvenalian 
type, discriminates between positive and negative atti- 
tudes, but not between the two stock objects. 

* Skelton: Colyn Clout. 

"Of no good bysshop speke I, 
Nor good priest I escrye, 
Good frere, nor good chanon, 
Good nonne, nor good canon. 
Good monke, nor good clerke. 
Nor yette of no good werke; 
But my recounting is 
Of them that do amys." 
' Barclay: Preface to Ship of Fools. 

"This present Boke myght have been callyd nat inconvenyently the Satyr 
(that is to say) the reprehencion of foulysshnes. * * * por in lyke wyse 
as olde Poetes Satyriens repreved the synnes and ylnes of the peple at that 
tyme lyvynge; so and in lyke wyse this our Boke representeth unto the iyen of 
the redars the states and condicions of men." 
' Essay on Satire. 



22 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

Speaking of the narrowed use of the word satire in 
French and English, he adds, 

"For amongst the Romans it was not only used for those 
discourses which decried vice, or exposed folly, but for others 
also where virtue was recommended. But in our modern lan- 
guages we apply it only to invective poems, * * * for in Eng- 
lish, to say Satire, is to mean reflection, as we use that word in 
its worst sense; or as the French call it, more properly, me- 
disance." 

Defoe ^ adds to the two a third, but in a somewhat 
casual enumeration: 

"Speak, Satire; for there's none can tell like thee 
Whether 'tis folly, pride, or knavery 
That makes this discontented land appear 
Less happy now in times of peace than war?" 

Swift 2 echoes the old duality: 

"His vein, ironically grave, 
Exposed the fool, and lash'd the knave." 

And Fielding,^ though he actually finds good game in 
folly, evidently considers vice the prime object: 

1 Trueborn Englishman. 

2 Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift. 
He adds, as to motive: 

" Yet malice never was his aim ; 
He lash'd the vice, but spared the name; 

His satire points at no defect, 
But what all mortals may correct; 
For he abhorr'd that senseless tribe 
Who call it humour when they gibe: 
***** 

True genuine dullness moved his pity, 
Unless it ofFer'd to be witty." 

3 Preface to The Intriguing Chambermaid: Epistle to Mrs. Clive. 



THE SATIRIC SPIRIT 23 

"But while I hold the pen, it will be a maxim with me, that 
vice can never be too great to be lashed, nor virtue too obscure 
to be commended; in other words, that satire can never rise 
too high, nor panegyric stoop too low." 

He also makes the same point in a historical review: ^ 

"In ancient Greece, the infant muses' school. 
Where Vice first felt the pen of ridicule. 
With honest freedom and impartial blows 
The Muse attacked each Vice as it arose: 
No grandeur could the mighty villain screen 
From the just satire of the comic scene." 

Although vice is now too powerful for such censure, he 
dares the lion in his den, and comforts the virtuous with 
reassurances : 

"And while these scenes the conscious knave displease. 
Who feels within the criminal he sees. 
The uncorrupt and good must smile, to find 
No mark for satire in his generous mind." 

The nineteenth century is full of straws still blowing in 
the direction of Vice and Folly: such as Taine*s ^ "Satire 
is the sister of elegy; if the second pleads for the oppressed, 
the first combats the oppressors." And Lionel Johnson ^ 
comments that Erasmus "had something in common with 
Matthew Arnold: a like satiric yet profoundly felt im- 
patience with intellectual pedantry and social folly." 

We may, however, see satire as opposition, and more- 
over opposition to vice and folly, and still be taking for 
granted that which demands more probing. For even if 
it were so simple a crusade as that, no crusade is as simple 
as it looks, and this one is particularly open to suspicion. 

^ Prologue to The Coffee-House Politician. 

* Hist, of Eng. Lit.: on Dickens. ^ Post Liminium. 



24 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

It is therefore not wholly superfluous to ask why vice 
and folly are the favorite satiric goals. Psychologically it 
would be sufficient to say that it is because anything a 
man disapproves of naturally seems to him foolish if not 
actually vicious. But socialized man cannot admit that 
his reaction to anything is based on mere temperamental 
prejudice. Condemnation of vice and folly is of course 
its own justification, and humor is its own reward. Un- 
fortunately, however, humorous condemnation is not al- 
ways applicable to these offenders against taste and mor- 
ality. Folly is sometimes too artless to be censured, and 
vice is often too serious to be ridiculed. Evidently then, yet 
another solution is needed, a least common denominator 
that will go into both, even if it does leave a remainder. 

Now it happens that a body of explicit testimony, sub- 
stantiated by a review of satiric practice, does indicate 
the existence of this unifying bond, this thing which, when 
present, makes both vice and folly criticizably absurd; 
and its generic name is deception. 

This fraudulent family has two main branches: the in- 
tentional type, including hypocrisy and humbug; and the 
unconscious, represented by sentimentality and other 
forms of self-befoolment; besides a half-conscious variety, 
whence come vanity, snobbishness, superstition, vul- 
garity, and other children of perverted ambition and false 
reasoning. All these give plenty of scope to the satirist, 
even when we subtract some possibilities by the impor- 
tant qualification that not all that deceives is ludicrous; 
deception being sometimes too innocent and even altruistic 
and sometimes too tragic and cruel. ^ 

According to this test, anything which assumes a vir- 

^ These relationships may be suggested by a graphic diagram. Not all folly 
is vicious, though all vice is foolish. Not all deception is either vicious or foolish, 



THE SATIRIC SPIRIT 25 

tue when it has it not may draw satiric fire. It is the as- 
sumption itself, the pose, that furnishes the shining mark 
loved by the satirist. 
On this point we again have Horatian testimony: ^ 

** Quid, cum est Lucilius ausus 
Primus in hunc operis componere carmina moremy 
Detrahere et pellem, nitidus qua quisque per ora 
Cederety introrsum turpis, * * * " 

Gascoigne ^ symbolised by his steel glass that which re- 
flected the beholders as they were, not flattered as by the 
plated mirror; and said his effort was to "sing a verse to 
make them see themselves." He also identified the root 
of all evil with hypocrisy; — "So that they seem, and covet 
not to be." 

Cervantes ^ spoke of his "Herculean labor'* as being 
"nothing more nor less than to banish mediocrity from the 
realm of Spanish poetry, and to sweep from its sacred pre- 
cincts, which had become as foul as an Augean stable, all 
shams, lies, hypocrisies, and vulgar baseness whatsoever." 

But the first to stress this idea with discriminating anal- 
ysis was, quite appropriately, the first in his own satirical 
field: 4 

though folly and vice are for the most part deceitful. The circle of the satirizible 
practically coincides with that portion of the ^^ _^^ 

deception-circle which falls within vice and ^.^'T^^'Vw ^^S. 

folly, a small margin being left outside to safe- // ^— .^ \\ \ 

guard against inelasticity. / 6^/ Vice^\i\ \ 

The connection between these two pairs of I Kl Folly A \ I 

subdivisions is evident; hypocrisy belonging \ (^ ?» — ^—.^3f^¥^^ 1 

on the whole to the vicious branch, and senti- ^^-v ^ "" ^"T/ / 

mentality, to the foolish. ^^ V .^^ / 

^ Satires, II, i. ^^'^''^^^ ^-X'^ 

2 The Steele Glas. ^^ 

5 Preface to The Journey to Parnassus. Gibson's translation. 
* Fielding: Tom Jones. 
The phrase omitted from the Dryden citation above is, "where the very 



26 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

"The only source of the true Ridiculous (as it appears 
to me) is affectation. * * * Now affectation proceeds 
from one of these two causes, vanity or hypocrisy; for as 
vanity puts us on affecting false characters, in order to pur- 
chase applause; so hypocrisy sets us on an endeavour to avoid 
censure, by concealing our vices under an appearance of their 
opposite virtues. * * * 

"From the discovery of this affectation arises the Ridiculous; 
* * * I might observe, that our Ben Jonson, who of all 
men understood the Ridiculous the best, hath chiefly used the 
hypocritical affectation." 

He remarks that this is more amusing than vanity, from 
the sharper contrast with reality, and adds: 

"Now, from affectation only, the misfortunes and cialamities 
of life, or the imperfections of nature, may become the objects 
of ridicule. * * * 

"The poet carries this very far: 

'None are for being what they are in fault. 
But for not being what they would be thought/" 

He concludes: 

"Great vices are the proper objects of our detestation, smaller 
faults of our pity; but affectation appears to me the only true 
source of the Ridiculous." 

Fielding's comment on Jonson is in turn applied to him 
by a modern critic: ^ 

"All Fielding's evil characters, it may be remarked, are 
accomplished hypocrites; on pure vanity or silHness he spends 
very few of his shafts." 

name of satire is formidable to those persons, who would appear to the world 
what they are not in themselves:" 
1 Raleigh; The English Novel. 



THE SATIRIC SPIRIT ITJ 

Taine ^ would find both easy to account for, on racial 
grounds : 

"The first-fruits of English society is hypocrisy. It ripens 
here under the double breath of religion and morality; we know 
their popularity and sway across the channel. * * * This 
vice is therefore Enghsh. Mr. Pecksniff is not found in 
France. * * * Since Voltaire, Tartuffe is impossible." 

Landor ^ has Lucian say: 

"I have ridiculed the puppets of all features, all colours, 
all sizes, by which an impudent and audacious set of impos- 
tors have been gaining an easy livelihood these two thousand 
years. * * * 

"The falsehood that the tongue commits is slight in com- 
parison with what is conceived by the heart, and executed by 
the whole man, throughout life." 

Meredith's portrait of The Comic Spirit is applicable to 
satire, for throughout the essay he gives to the term comic 
the connotation generally allowed to the term satiric: 

"Men's future upon earth does not attract it; their honesty 
and shapeliness in the present does; and whenever they wax out 
of proportion, overblown, affected, pretentious, bombastical, 

' Hist, of Eng. Lit.: on Dickens. 

^ Imaginary Conversations: Lucian and Timotheus. 

Timotheus, exultant over the Dialogues, remarks that "Nothing can be so 
gratifying and satisfactory to a rightly disposed mind, as the subversion of im- 
posture by the force of ridicule." Disappointed, however, in his assumption 
that Lucian is now ready to embrace the true faith, which turns out to be a 
-non sequiter, he accuses the inflexible pagan of sacrilege, ready to turn into 
ridicule the true and the holy. To which Lucian in turn repUes "In other 
words, to turn myself into a fool. He who brings ridicule to bear against Truth, 
finds in his hands a blade without a hilt. The most sparkling and pointed flame 
of wit flickers and expires against the incombustible walls of her sanctuary." 

Lucian himself, in The Angler, declares it his business to hate quacks, jugglery, 
lies, and conceit. 



28 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

hypocritical, pedantic, fantastically delicate; whenever it sees 
them self-deceived or hoodwinked, given to run riot in idolatries, 
drifting into vanities, congregating in absurdities, planning 
short-sightedly, plotting dementedly; whenever they are at 
variance with their professions, * * * whenever they of- 
fend sound reason, fair justice; are false in humility or mined 
with conceit, * * * they are detected and ridiculed." 

Meredith ^ also reiterates the distinction made by Swift 
and Fielding in regard to misfortune: 

"Poverty, says the satirist, has nothing harder in itself than 
that it makes men ridiculous. But poverty is never ridiculous 
to Comic perception until it attempts to make its rags conceal 
its bareness in a forlorn attempt at decency, or foolishly to 
rival ostentation." 

And he remarks of Moliere: 

"He strips Folly to the skin, displays the imposture of the 
creature, and is content to offer her better clothing." 

Of the two forms of affectation, Fielding chooses hyp- 
ocrisy as better satirical game, but Bergson ^ votes for the 
other: 

"In this respect it might be said that the specific remedy for 
vanity is laughter, and that the one failing that is essentially 
laughable is vanity." 

Fuess ^ makes for the last great poetic satirist the fam- 
iliar conventional claim: 

"Byron is attacking not virtue, but false sentiment, false 
idealism, and false faith. His satiric spirit is engaged in * * * 
tearing down what is sham and pretence and fraud." 

^ Essay on Comedy. ^ Laughter, 174. * Byron as a Satirist, 180. 



THE SATIRIC SPIRIT 2<) 

Previte-Orton ^ applies the test to politics: 

"Finally, there is another service political satires render, 
which is peculiarly necessary to a government based on discus- 
sion. One of the greatest evils in such a state is the presence 
of mere words and phrases, and of the vague Pecksniffian 
virtues. Now to satire cant and humbug are proper game. 
It brings fine professions down to fact, points the contrast 
between the commonplace reality and its tinsel dress, and by 
the dread of ridicule raises the standard of plain-dealing. 
Other means of criticism as well act as a check on more oppro- 
brious faults in public life. But satire is the best agent to keep 
us free from taking words for substance." 

Apparently, then, we may conclude that deception 
in some form is, so far as any one thing can be, the basic 
object of satire, or at least is so considered by those who 
reflect upon it. But we must admit here as elsewhere that 
to recognise a phenomenon is easier than to account for it. 

Not that it is difficult to account for the deception it- 
self. No instinct is more fundamental and irresistible than 
that of concealment. The primary fear of molestation or 
harm in which it originates becomes, in a social state of 
sophistication and artifice, fear of exposure. With in- 
creased development, such complex and opposing factors 
as pride and shame, avarice and generosity, ostentation 
and modesty, lead us to hide things. We hide all sorts of 
things, good and bad; faults, virtues, deficiencies, accom- 
plishments, hoardings, and charities. We hide from our- 
selves as well as from others. The left hand is as a rule 
not on terms of confiding intimacy with the right, whether 

' Political Satire in English Poetry, 240. 

In his Temper of the Seventeenth Century in English Literature, Wendell con- 
tributes another link to the chain of evidence: 

"Sincere or not, satire is essentially a kind of writing which pretends to un- 
mask pretense." 



30 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

it is scattering seeds of kindness or getting into mischief. 
In the mental realm the same trick of camouflage prevails. 
Out of spiritual cowardice we conceal from ourselves the 
disturbing facts of life, and purchase optimism at the easy 
price of sentimentalism. 

But just why this ubiquitous habit should be the pecu- 
liar province of the satirist, is another psychological prob- 
lem; and as such, is best reached through a psychological 
solution. Why is there about deception something in- 
herently repugnant and at the same time automatically 
amusing? Why is our incorrigible human predilection for 
belonging to the Great Order of Shams equalled only 
by our incorrigible human predilection for joyous ex- 
posure of others? The game seems to be mutual and 
perpetual, and the honors about even. 

The repugnance undoubtedly comes less from a noble 
devotion to truth than from the dislike we all have of be- 
ing deceived. Nothing do we discover with more exasper- 
ation, and admit with more reluctance than the fact that 
we have been fooled or hoodwinked. It is an experience 
that fosters present irritation and future distrust; but one 
which, from its very nature, demands the retort ironic 
rather than the lofty indignation accorded to an open 
injury. Most emphatically "We all hate fustian and 
affectation," and any knavish trickery, especially in 
others. 

The amusement arises from the triumph of frustrating 
this attempt at deceptive concealment, intensified by the 
pleasure in perceiving an incongruity — in this case, be- 
tween the assumed and the actual — which is the essence 
of humor. ^ The zest lies in the endless sport of hide and 

* Hazlett, in his essay on IVit and Humour, remarks that "it has appeared 
that the detection and exposure of difference, particularly where this implies 



THE SATIRIC SPIRIT 3I 

seek, veiling and unveiling, blowing bubbles and prick- 
ing them, which is exhilarating through the play of wits 
and the fun of outwitting.^ 

This would perhaps be a sufficient account were it not 
for a certain left-handed yet inseparable connection of the 
psychology of the question with its ethics. Whether or 
not an intruder, the latter has entered in and firmly en- 
trenched herself. When therefore she maintains that her 
satiric discontent is divine, she must be given a respect- 
ful hearing; though after it we seem unable to concede 
more than the possibility. 

A lively enthusiasm for showing up the ingenuous sent- 
imentalist or the crafty hypocrite may or may not argue a 
freedom on the exposer's part from these or other modes 
of hiding or distorting the truth; or a disinterested love 
for truth itself. It does go without saying that real re- 
spect and admiration for honesty and sincerity is a funda- 
mental human trait, as witness the glowing encomiums 
bestowed on those guileless virtues, and it might follow 
that our unmoral impulses are half consciously focussed 
through a moral function. We must have a sin offering; 
and deceit is in the most eligible. Thus the satirist may, 
deliberately or unthinkingly, read deception into his dis- 
approved, in order to have an excuse for laughter, just as 
he may read vice and folly into his disliked, in order to 
condemn. Nevertheless it is possible to enjoy the process 
of unmasking without making it a corollary that masking 
is wrong and therefore deserving of exposure. 

Some observers are more impressed with the resem- 

nice and subtle observation, as in discriminating between pretence and practice, 
between appearance and reality, is common to wit and satire with judgment 
and reasoning." 

1 Meredith characterises the chase of Folly by the Comic Spirit as conducted 
"with the springing delight of hawk over heron, hound after fox." 



32 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

blances among the members of the great human family, 
and some more sensitive to the differences. When a con- 
sciousness of this variance is dissolved in a humorous 
solution, it precipitates a satire. The satirist is not always 
a victorious Saint George, and the satirized a downed and 
disgraced Dragon. Still, if the Saint could be secularized 
to the extent of a mocking light in his eye, and a taunt- 
ing finger pointing at a removed disguise under which the 
Dragon had been masquerading, we might take the pic- 
ture as a symbol of an ideal relationship between them, 
both ethically and artistically. 

For there is an ideal in this as in all things that have 
variation and flexibility; and, as in them all, the question 
of quality is the most important one. Without some 
sort of criterion we can form no judgments as to value. 
The points we have been considering, — what satire is made 
of, why and how made, against what directed, and in what 
effective, all lead to the final one, — what is the highest 
type? 

The trend of testimony seems to converge on three re- 
quirements for that satire which would disarm criticism 
while indulging in it: purity of purpose, kindliness of tem- 
per, and discrimination as to objects of ridicule. 

The first is not to be confused with the reformatory mo- 
tive. It means simply freedom from the very affectation 
censured in others. What it rules out is not so much the 
railing to gratify one's spleen, as the pose of altrusim while 
doing it; the grieved this-hurts-me-more-than-it-does-you 
attitude so particularly annoying to the castigated. It 
also discounts the selfish vanity which courts applause for 
wit, regardless of the means by which it is won. 

On this point Horace ^ again heads the list. He denies 

1 Satires: I, IV, 78 ff. 



THE SATIRIC SPIRIT 33 

the accusation that the satirist is spiteful, and con- 
tinues: 

" Liberius si 
Dixero quid, si forte jocosius, hoc mihi juris 
Cum venia dabis." 

From the nature of English satire up to the eighteenth 
century, we do not expect, nor do we find, much interest 
in this phase of it. Then comes Young,^ reviving the 
Horatian caution: 

"Who, for the poor renown of being smart, 
Would leave a sting within a brother's heart?" 

And Cowper ^ completes the portrait: 

"Unless a love of virtue light the flame. 
Satire is, more than those he brands, to blame; 
He hides behind a magisterial air 
His own offenses, and strips others bare; 
Affects, indeed, a most humane concern. 
That men, if gently tutor'd, will not learn; 
That mulish folly, not to be reclaimed 
By softer methods, must be made ashamed;" 

De Quincey ^ uses Pope as a horrible example of this 
failing, contrasting him with the indignant Juvenal: 

"Pope, having no such internal principle of wrath boiling 
in his breast, * * * was unavoidably a hypocrite of the 
first magnitude when he affected (or sometimes really con- 
ceited himself) to be in a dreadful passion with offenders as a 
body. It provokes fits of laughter * * * to watch him in 
the process of brewing the storm that spontaneously will not 
come; whistling, like a mariner, for a wind to fill his satiric 

^ Universal Passion. 

2 Charity. 

^ Literary Theory and Criticism. The Poetry of Pope. 



34 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

sails; and pumping up into his face hideous grimaces in order 
to appear convulsed with histrionic rage. * * * As it is, 
the short puffs of anger, the uneasy snorts of fury in Pope's 
satires, give one painfully the feeling of a locomotive-engine 
with unsound lungs." 

Whether these strictures are just or not, the principle 
back of them is sound; and more pithily summed up by 
Landor's ^ "Nobody but an honest man has a right to 
scoff at anything." 

Browning ^ carries the idea a step farther, and sounds 
a warning to dwellers in glass houses: 

"Have you essayed attacking ignorance, 
Convicting folly, by their opposites, 
Knowledge and wisdom ? Not by yours for ours, 
Fresh ignorance and folly, new for old, 
Greater for less, your crime for our mistake!" 

The demand for kindliness of temper may seem para- 
doxical, but for that very reason it is the more insistent. 
Being under suspicion of unkindness, vindictive spite, 
retaliation, satire must either admit the charge or prove 
the contrary, for the real paradox lies in the highest 
moral claim being made for the literary genre of the 
greatest immoral possibilities. 

However, until the modern humanitarian cult came in, 
it seemed content to admit the charge. After Horace, 
with a few isolated exceptions, as Swift ^ and Cowper,* 

^ Imag. Conv. Lucian to Timotheus. 

2 Jrist. Apol. 

' In spite of Cowper's and Byron's assertions to the contrary. 

* "All zeal for a reform that gives offense 
To peace and charity, is mere pretense; 
A bold remark; but which, if well applied. 
Would humble many a tow'ring poet's pride." {Charity.) 



THE SATIRIC SPIRIT 35 

satire seemed rather to cherish malice and glory in rude- 
ness, often mistaking peevish scolding for noble scorn. 
Its keynote was "A flash of that satiric rage," or, ac- 
cording to Hall, 

"The Satire should be like the porcupine, 
That shoots sharp quills out in each angry line." 

Byron was the last example of both the professional, 
concentrated form and the truculent mood. Tennyson ^ 
voices the new spirit of his century: 

"I loathe it: he had never kindly heart, 
Nor ever cared to better his own kind. 
Who first wrote satire, with no pity in it." 

Birrell,^ less caustic than De Quincey about Pope, still 
uses him as an instance of how not to do it: 

*'Dr. Johnson is more to my mind as a sheer satirist than 
Pope, for in satire character tells more than in any other form 
of verse. We want a personality behind — a strong, gloomy, 
brooding personality; soured and savage, if you will * * * 
but spiteful never." 

Even the traits of gloom and savagery might be dis- 
pensed with, and room made for an infusion of sweetness 
and light. This is implied in the condition laid down by 
Lionel Johnson: ^ 

"To tilt at superstition, to shoot at folly, is seldom a grateful 
or a gratifying pursuit, if there be no depth of purpose in it, 
nothing but pleasure in the consciousness of destructive power, 
no feeling of sympathetic pity, no tenderness somewhere in the 
heart, no cordiality sweetening the work of overthrow." 

' Sea Dreams. ^ Collected Essays, I, 1 87. ^ Post Liminium. 



$6 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

And Garnett ^ concludes: 

"Satirists have met with much ignorant and invidious de- 
preciation, as though a talent for ridicule was necessarily the 
index of an unkindly nature. The truth is just the reverse." 

Discrimination as to objects of satire has reference not 
to their nature, as foolish, vicious, deceitful, but to their 
legitimacy as objects. It is a matter of taste and justice 
on the part of the satirist. 

The first definite reproof of heedlessness on this score 
is given in the memorial tribute to Pope: ^ 

"Dart not on Folly an indignant eye: 
Whoe'er discharged artillery on a fly? 
Deride not Vice: absurd the thought and vain, 
To bind the tyger in so weak a chain. 

The Muse's labour then success shall crown, 
When Folly feels her smile, and Vice her frown. 
******** 

Let Satire then her proper object know. 
And ere she strikes, be sure she strikes a foe. 
Nor fondly deem the real fool confest. 
Because blind Ridicule conceives a jest." 

Another critic ^ of that time utters a similar caution: 

1 Preface to Headlong Hall, in the Aldine edition of Peacock, 40. In his 
Essay on Comedy, Meredith goes beyond mere absence of hate: 

"You may estimate your capacity for comic perception by being able to 
detect the ridicule of them you love, without loving them the less; and more by 
being able to see yourself somewhat ridiculous in dear eyes, and accepting the 
correction their image of you proposes," 72. 

It is true that on the next page he differentiates, — " If you detect the ridicule, 
and your kindliness is chilled by it, you are slipping into the grasp of satire." 
But he is evidently using satire in the older, narrower sense. 

2 John Brown's Essay on Satire. 
^ Spectator, 209. L. 



THE SATIRIC SPIRIT 37 

"A satire should expose nothing but what is corrigible, and 
make a due discrimination between those who are, and those 
who are not the proper objects of it." 

The best modern expression ^ of this idea happens to 
be an interpretation of a pioneer satirist. And it is dis- 
tinctly modern in its recognition that while the real ob- 
ject of satire must be an abstraction, — the sin not the 
sinner — it must, to be artistic, have a concrete embodi- 
ment, — the sinner rather than the sin. The Greek drama- 
tist explains: 

"Yet spiteless In a sort, considered well, 
Since I pursued my warfare till each wound 
Went through the mere man, reached the principle 
Worth purging from Athenai. Lamachos? 
No, I attacked war's representative; 
Kleon? No, flattery of the populace; 
Sokrates? No, but that pernicious seed 
Of sophists whereby hopeful youth is taught 
To jabber argument, chop logic, pore 
On sun and moon, and worship Whirligig." 

But while the good satirist must have these assets, it 
does not follow that the possession of them will guarantee 
good satire. It can only be said that without them he 
cannot be ranked high, though, having them, he rnay not 
be ranked at all. It may be difficult for a Juvenal not to 
write satire, but it is difficult for anyone to produce a fine 
example of this, as of any other form of art. No more 
than any art is it exempt from a recognition of truth ^ and 

1 Browning: Aris. Apol. Cf. Fielding, Tom Jones, VI, 357, for a similar dis- 
tinction. 

2 Cf. Brown's Essay on Satire for scorn of Shaftesbury's idea that ridicule is 
the test of truth; refuted ironically in the lines, — 



38 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

even beauty, though its connection with them is the para- 
doxical one of drawing attention to their opposities. It 
is a truism that many things are best understood and 
appreciated by a portrayal of contrasts. In this case it 
is a perception of the congruous that is particularly con- 
cerned, and it is implied in the satirist's keen sense of the 
incongruous. 

The satirist has not only these normal obligations, but 
some peculiar dangers. He is in as perilous a position 
as Sir Guyon in his voyage to the realm of Acrasia: 
threatened by the didacticism that besets the critic, the 
vulgarity and rudeness that prey upon the jester, the 
prejudice and injustice that warp the opponent, the smug- 
ness that undermines the reformer. Moreover, he has 
his hampering limitations. He is forever confined to the 
middle plane of life, shut out alike from its sublime 
heights and tragic depths. 

Added to this restriction in range is another in quantity. 
The nature of satire makes it better adapted for the 
trimming than the whole cloth. Its role in the dramatis 
personce of literature is restricted to the minor parts, but 
this subordination in place does not mean a negligible 
rank. The untrimmed garment, the all-star cast, these 
are not desirable even when possible. For the accessory 
there is also an ideal whose attainment Is quite as im- 
portant as though it pertained to the main substance. 

" Deride our weak forefathers' musty rule, 
Who therefore smil'd, because they saw a fool; 
Sublimer logic now adorns our isle, 
We therefore see a fool, because we smile." 
He concludes that wit is safe only when rationalized: 

" Then mirth may urge, when reason can explore. 
This point the way, that waft us to the shore." 
(Carlyle expresses a similar opinion in his essay on Voltaire.) 



THE SATIRIC SPIRIT 39 

In the case of satire such a standard would call for cen- 
sure that is candid and just, wit that is spontaneous and 
refined, both actuated by sincere motives, and directed 
against certain failings of humanity rather than against 
the human individuals themselves, though these must 
body forth the abstractions otherwise intangible, — the 
combination producing an effect essentially truthful and 
artistic. That all this can come only from one who is 
more than a mere satirist is axiomatic, and indeed so 
fundamentally true that it might be said that the more of 
a satirist a man is in quantity, the less is his chance for 
fine quality. 

The modern author has conquered these requirements 
and obstacles, not by taking arms against his sea of trou- 
bles, but by the less intrepid and more diplomatic method 
of disowning his title. The satirist is obsolete, but the 
satiric writer, or even better, the writer with a satiric 
touch, is more in evidence than ever. It is perhaps too 
much of a challenge to say that Shakespeare is a greater 
satirist than Aristophanes, Jonson, or Moliere; but no 
one would deny the superior quality of his smaller amount. 
The aroma of his delicate spice and lemon extract has 
not only lasted longer than their pepper and vinegar, but 
is better relished by the modern palate. The nineteenth 
century had no Shakespeare to "stoop from the height 
of a serene intelligence to sport with satire," but its best 
satire came from those who took it least seriously and 
insinuated it with least pomp and circumstance. And 
so far from being the most conspicuous in the satiric 
field, these who are greatest in this matter are also 
greatest and best known for other than satiric gifts and 
accomplishments. 

While these humorous critics would be more content 



40 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

than their forerunners with the early dictum that satire 
was "invented for the purging of our minds," ^ rather 
than for the practical consequences sometimes claimed 
for it, yet they would not adopt the suceeding phrase of 
the definition, — "in which human vices, ignorance and 
errors, * * * are severely reprehended;" for they 
would qualify more carefully the objects, and abstain from 
severity in their reprehension. 

This dividing line among objects would make, how- 
ever, a scientific rather than an ethical bisection. The 
"stolidly conscientious performance" of confining the 
practice of satire to a moral issue, does indeed, as Dr. Al- 
den points out,^ argue a "deficiency in wit" that marks 
the Anglo-Saxon mind. But as the Englishman became 
more cosmopolitan, he learned to disguise such of his 
innate solemnity as he could not shed. That he has ab- 
sorbed more completely the more easily assimilated He- 
brew and Roman traits, has not prevented him from ac- 
quiring some also from the Greek and the French. The 
Victorian is naturally a multiplex compound, and in him 
we see all these elements in various stages of conflict 
and combination. 

^ Heinsius, in his Dissertations on Horace. A conception drawn perhaps from 
the Aristotelian "purging of our passions " through tragedy. 
2 Rise oj Formal Satire in England. 49. 



CHAPTER II 

THE CONFLUENCE 

Our present study is concerned with the union of two 
ancient streams of literature as they come together on the 
fertile plain of the nineteenth century. This marriage of 
a satiric Medway and a fictional Thames is a happy Eng- 
lish event, though by no means the first alliance between 
these historic families. In their long careers they are 
found sometimes entirely separate, but very often united. 
The latter course works for a decided mutual advantage, 
with a preponderance of gain accruing to satire, as fiction 
can live without satire far better than satire without fic- 
tion. 

A narrative of entire gravity may be a gracious and 
splendid thing; indeed, pure tragedy is perhaps the highest 
form of art. But when satire is divorced from fiction it 
must dispense with fiction's great contribution, the gar- 
ment of warm imagination and colorful concreteness; and 
be content with the severe raiment of bald didacticism and 
chill abstraction. In truth, satire has always been not 
only the greater beneficiary but the more dependent 
partner, though what it has in turn supplied is of un- 
questionable value. It is like an entertaining but un- 
equipaged traveler, always asking for a ride. Even when 
it apparently had an establishment of its own and was rec- 
ognized as a literary genrCy it was not independent with 
the independence of the lyric, the drama, or the treatise, 
but was constantly borrowing furniture from them all. 

4» 



42 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

Hence when satire invaded Victorian fiction, — or was 
adopted by it, — the conjunction brought its benefits to 
both. The former profited qualitatively from the anti- 
dote furnished by creative construction to destructive 
censure, and quantitatively by the improvement result- 
ing from diminution, — that subordination which is the 
secret of success with all seasoning, trimming, and such 
accessories. The latter gained, not so much by the mere 
infusion of pleasantry, for that refreshing element has a 
deplorable tendency to degenerate into ill bred pertness, 
as by the toning up of the criticism inseparable from the 
realistic novel, and by the pungent and dramatic turn 
given to its didacticism. "Som mirthe or som doctryne'* 
has ever been the demand of the Englishman, and he 
has relished them best in that happy unison supplied by 
satire. 

Hence also the combination was but a new and more 
consequential celebration of an old, traditional connec- 
tion. From the Greek Menippean mixture and the 
Milesian tale the line extends, with innumerable ramifi- 
cations into fabliaux, burlesques, allegories, letters, and 
characters, in prose and verse, to the perfected eighteenth- 
century product, whence the increasingly perfected prod- 
uct of the nineteenth century immediately is derived. 

Like all such associations, this one is neither accidental 
on the one hand nor consciously intentional on the other, 
but is the result of many forces and influences set in oper- 
ation by circumstances, and available for great effective- 
ness if rightly comprehended and wisely used. In this 
Victorian situation we are confronted with the dual fac- 
tors: a literary form raised to tremendous prestige by a rich 
inheritance and an especial rapprochement with its own 
times; and a prevailing temper of humorous criticism 



THECONFLUENCE 43 

which could not fail to thrive under the double stimulus of 
a fermenting environment about which there were endless 
things to be said, and a general liberation from external 
control which allowed these seething utterances free and 
full play of expression. 

Thus have all things worked together for the good of 
the Victorian novel. It was fortunate alike in its endow- 
ment, its alliances, and its surroundings. A period of such 
upheaval, such introspection, such anxious responsibility, 
and withal such zest of life, all diffused through a demo- 
cratic atmosphere, could best be interpreted by a form of 
literature which, besides being in itself thoroughly demo- 
cratic, gives large scope for the author's comments and 
conclusions. 

The drama is an excellent reflector, but necessarily im- 
personal; a dilemma that is dodged rather than solved by 
the Shavian device of Prefaces. The lyric, on the con- 
trary, is too personal to be representative. And concen- 
trated exposition is admittedly strong meat for the intel- 
lectual babes who constitute the vast majority, or even, as 
a steady diet, for children of a larger growth. This does 
not mean, of course, that the novel is a childish product 
or plaything; but that its union of the dramatic and di- 
dactic, the emotional and rational, the picturesque and sig- 
nificant, the merry and sad, together with its absolutely 
unrestricted range in material, makes it ideal as a popular 
type in the best sense of the word. 

A critic of the time half ironically remarks, — ^ 

"The future historians of literature * * * will no doubt 
analyze the spirit of the age and explain how the novelists, more 
or less unconsciously, reflected the dominant ideas which were 

^ Leslie Stephen: George Eliot, 67-68. 



44 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

agitating the social organism, * * * The novelists were 
occupied in constructing a most elaborate panorama of the 
manners and customs of their own times with a minuteness and 
psychological analysis not known to their predecessors. Their 
work is, of course, an implicit criticism of life." 

With all the encouragement bestowed upon them the 
Victorian novelists could indeed do no less than live up to 
their opportunities. Not ad astra per aspera lay their 
destiny. Nothing more was asked of them than to re- 
frain from burying their talents, and to this admonition 
they were zealously obedient. 

The writers themselves supply striking inductive data 
as to the general diffusion both of fiction and satire. A 
list of the dozen most prominent Victorian novelists shows 
that no one of them was wholly devoid of interest in pub- 
lic affairs, and none was entirely lacking in the satiric 
touch. On the other hand, every one of them saw more 
on his horizon than current events, and all were something 
more than mere critics or humorists or even both. 

They were themselves of the Victorian Age. Each one 
might say Pars Jui^ if not magna. None therefore had a 
detached point of view, nor a long perspective. But 
though their vision was microscopic rather than telescopic, 
it was searching and enthusiastic, and the report it made 
was honest if not always dispassionate. It could hardly 
be otherwise for those who were alive and awake at a time 
when new information was creating new ideas, and these 
in turn were becoming dynamic in new movements, po- 
litical, religious, educational, social. All these things were 
too tremendous and important to be taken otherwise than 
seriously. The dominant feeling was grave and earnest, 
as one of its interpreters has said: ^ 

^ Thorndike, English Literature in Lectures on Literature, 268-9. 



THECONFLUENCE 45 

"In the Victorian era, which we have found so neglectful 
of literary standards, Literature has been of greater social and 
ethical stimulus than ever before. * * * J^ throbs with a 
new sympathy for those who toil unceasingly in poverty, and 
a new bewilderment upon the realization that the world which 
is changing so rapidly is still so full of misery and hopeless- 
ness. * * * But, as the world went, the main impulse and 
the main characteristic of Victorian Literature became this 
great sense of pity for things as they are and of an imperious 
duty to make them better." 

But the sense of pity was sometimes voiced with wit, 
and one of the sharpest weapons at the service of duty 
was the shaft of ridicule. With nothing to satirize, society 
would be a paradise. With no satirists, it would be rather 
a dull inferno. But it is our human world that is purga- 
torial. 

Since the purpose of our present study is to discover the 
proportion and nature of the satiric element in Victorian 
fiction, to note its relation to the rest of the work, and to 
reach some conclusion as to the total effect of its presence 
and use, it might aid in clearness to subjoin a table of 
names and dates of the novelists with whom we are con- 
cerned. 



Name 


Birth 


Period of Publication ^ 


Death 


Peacock 


1785 


i8i6-i86i 


1866 


Lytton 


1803 


1827-1873 


1873 


Disraeli 


1804 


1826-1880 


1881 


Gaskell 


i8io 


1848-1865 


1865 



1 This theoretically includes only the novel, though the term is used in the 
widest sense. In the cases of Thackeray, Dickens, Eliot, and Meredith, the 
line is rather hard to draw between the novel and sketches, tales, short stories, 
and burlesques. Peacock, Lytton, Disraeli, and Butler force us to make the 
limits of the novel decidedly flexible. 



46 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 



Name 


Birth 


Period of Publication 


Death 


Thackeray 


1811 


I 844-1 862 


1863 


Dickens 


1812 


1837-1870 


1870 


Reade 


1814 


1853-1884 


1884 


TroUope 


1815 


1855-1880 


1882 


Bronte 


1816 


1847-1853 


1855 


Kingsley 


1819 


I 848-1 871 


1875 


Eliot 


1819 


1859-1876 


1880 


Meredith 


1828 


1859-1895 


1909 


Butler 


183s 


I 872-1901 


1902 



This list, reaching from Scott to Hardy, not inclusive, 
has been reckoned as a round dozen, but it actually 
numbers a baker's dozen. ^ The noteworthy thing about 
it is that it would probably be agreed upon as the preemi- 
nent list on any count; so that those who are excluded on 
the score of being too consistently serious or romantic, as 
Yonge, Collins, Blackmore, Henry Kingsley, MacDon- 
ald, would hardly be included on the score of quality, al- 
though some of them might rival some of the least among 
those chosen as members of the satirico-realistic group. 

A glance at the preceding table reveals an obvious 
chronological division into five parts; although the first 
and the two last consist of one man each. The second 
contains only two names; and their separation from the 
main group occurs at the beginning rather than at the end, 
for Lytton's race ran beyond five of those who started 

1 If it were desirable to eliminate the thirteenth chair, it might be done 
in a number of ways. Peacock might be ruled out as a contemporary of the 
earlier generation, as Gryll Grange is all that carries him over. Butler on the 
other hand belongs to the later, except that Erewhon appeared in the year of 
Middlemarch. As a satirist, Bronte is so near the edge of the circle that her 
inclusion at all is questionable. Since it happens, however, that the year of her 
death coincides with that of Reade's first novel, we might fancy her yielding 
a place to him, so that there were never more than twelve at one time. 



THECONFLUENCE 47 

later, and Disraeli's beyond seven. Of those, only Reade 
published novels after 1880. 

This main group is one of those remarkable concentra- 
tions in which destiny seems to delight. When the second 
decade of the century gave to the world eight great names 
in this field alone, and some equally distinguished ones 
in others, it surely filled its quota toward the advance of 
civilization. 

Meredith comes enough later than this outpouring of 
God's plenty to be classed by himself chronologically, 
especially as he must be by the character of his work 
also, in spite of the fact that his first novel belongs to 
the same prolific year as the first of George Eliot's. 

The middle of the century is thus also the center of a 
circle of activity whose radius extends for about two dec- 
ades on either side, passing thence into thinner aired 
intermediate zones, — transition periods from the eight- 
eenth and to the twentieth centuries, seasons whose 
energies are potential, or spent, rather than vigorously 
kinetic. 

But this central period, something more than a genera- 
tion, and less than a half century, is dynamic enough. 
It has frequently been described, and its activities — 
Chartism, the Oxford Movement, Utilitarianism, Posi- 
tivism, the Industrial Revolution, Christian Socialism, 
Darwinism, Pre-Raphaeliteism — are an oft-told tale. It 
is only to be remembered that this was the atmosphere 
breathed by the majority of our novelists, and these the 
vital interests which would concern them in so far as 
they were concerned with the public afi^airs of their time. 

A review of the satiric strain in literature gives an 
interesting clew both to the fact and the significance of 
the relation of satire to the total literary product. 



48 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

Nor can one be estimated independently of the other. 
There is, of course, no such thing as a pure, or mere, 
satirist. Even a saturated solution involves two ele- 
ments. The dissolved substance must have a medium to 
be dissolved in. Starting from this point, we may classify 
the most conspicuous names according to this relation- 
ship. 

There are first the completely surcharged. But the 
important matter is whether the container is itself large, — • 
Aristophanes, Juvenal, Swift, Voltaire, — or of smaller 
mold and less capacity, — Dunbar, Skelton, Smollett, 
Churchill, Gifford. To this class come no recruits from 
the nineteenth century. Sceva indignation no longer makes 
verses, even when witticized, having been put out of fash- 
ion by the autonomic humor which informs the sophisti- 
cated critic that of all incongruous things the most incon- 
gruous and absurd is the satirist who takes himself seri- 
ously. 

Next come those whose absolute amount of satire may 
be equal to that of the preceding, but whose versatile 
interests make it relatively smaller. It is neither of their 
life a thing apart, nor yet their whole existence. Such 
are Horace, Cervantes, Jonson, Dryden, Boileau, Pope, 
Fielding, Burns, Byron. This class on a smaller scale is 
represented by Gascoigne, Wyatt, Hall, Donne, Lodge, 
Addison, Goldsmith, Hood, Moore, Mark Twain. Among 
these we find about half of our novelists, — Peacock and 
Butler, Dickens and Trollope, Thackeray and Meredith. 

In the third division satire is measured still more by 
the law of diminishing returns. It is composed of those 
who are never thought of as satirists, not even as satirical, 
and yet are very far from being innocent. Such are the 
Hebrew Prophets and the author of Job^ Euripides, Spen- 



THECONFLUENCE 49 

ser, Shakespeare, Milton (in his prose), Johnson, Scott, 
Shelley, Browning. Similar but of lesser magnitude are 
Erasmus, More, Defoe, Young, Cowper, Blake, De Quin- 
cey. Here are found the other half of the novelists, — 
Lytton, Disraeli, Gaskell, Reade, Bronte, Kingsley. The 
impression given by these is not so much a solution at 
all as of separate and distinguishable particles: of ele- 
ments native and yet not integral, — like fish in water. 
They might be taken away, and though the total effect 
would be very much changed, the real character of the 
liquid would not. 

Quite the opposite of this is the condition of the fourth 
estate. Here the process of amalgamation is carried to an 
extreme, one might say, paradoxically, to the vanishing 
point. It resembles the first class in that the satire is 
pervasive, and the third in that it is of relatively small 
quantity; so small that it hardly seems worth taking into 
account, yet it could not be abstracted. If it could, it 
would leave a scarcely dinimished but almost unrecogniz- 
able remainder. It is not revealed so much as betrayed. 
It seldom indulges in anything so bald as overt satire, 
or so conscious even as covert innuendo. It is the tone 
of a personality. It is not Aristotle nor Virgil nor Wyclif 
nor Wordsworth nor Tennyson. It is Homer, Plato, 
Lucretius, Dante, Langland, Burton, Gibbon, Sterne, 
Austen, Arnold, Carlyle, Hardy, Anatole France. Among 
the Victorian novelists it is George Eliot. 

To this matter of quantity there is a fairly definite 
relation of quality. The fact that the largest quantity 
is now a discarded type indicates that relation to be one 
of inverse proportion. The second and third divisions 
evince hilarity, sarcasm, shoddy flippancy, or profound 
wit, according to the temperaments of the writers. 



50 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

Therein lies the greatest variety. The fourth occupies the 
great field of irony. It is the siccum lumen ^ occasionally 
flashing, usually lambent, smouldering, gravely glowing. 

Amid these differences in kind and degree, the Vic- 
torian novelists had a sort of unity in possessing a cer- 
tain sense of satire, more or less consciously realized, 
and of themselves as satirists. This is not only discernible 
in the general air they have of intending to do it, but is 
made visible by remarks in the nature of Confessions of a 
Satirist voiced by about half their number. 

"Let those who cannot nicely and with certainty dis- 
cern," says Charlotte Bronte in Shirley ^ "the difference 
between the tones of hypocrisy and those of sincerity, 
never presume to laugh at all, lest they have the miser- 
able misfortune to laugh in the wrong place, and commit 
impiety when they think they are achieving wit." 

Thackeray,^ the "cynic", is the one to reiterate most 
strongly the Pauline creed that love of mankind is the 
root of all good. He remarks that humor means more 
than laughter, and adds: 

"The humorous writer professes to awaken your love, your 
pity, your kindness — your scorn for untruth, pretension, im- 
posture — your tenderness for the weak, the oppressed, the un- 
happy. To the best of his means and ability he comments on 
all the ordinary actions and passions of life almost. He takes 
upon himself to be the week-day preacher, so to speak. Accord- 

^ English Humorists; Swift, 2. 

Cf. Kingsley: "One cannot laugh heartily at a man if one has not a lurking 
love for him." Two Years Ago, 143. 

And Meredith: "And to love Comedy you must know the real world, and 
know men and women well enough not to expect too much of them, though 
you may still hope for good." Essay on Comedy, 40. Also: "You share the 
sublime of wrath, that would not have hurt the foolish, but merely demon- 
strate their foolishness." Ibid. 85. 



THE CONFLUENCE 51 

ingly, as he finds, and speaks, and feels the truth best, we regard 
him, esteem him — sometimes love him." 

Trollope ^ agrees as to the lay-clerical office: 

"I have always thought of myself as a preacher of sermons, 
and my pulpit as one which I could make both salutary and 
agreeable to my audience." 

Dickens ^ also claims the intent of speaking the truth 
in love: 

"Cervantes laughed Spain's chivalry away, by showing Spain 
its impossible and wild absurdity. It was my attempt, in my 
humble and far-distant sphere, to dim the false glitter surround- 
ing something which really did exist, by showing it in its un- 
attractive and repulsive truth." 

The greatest unamimity is as to objects. Peacock ^ 

^ Autobiography, 133. 

2 Preface to Oliver Twist, xv. 

That Dickens was mistaken as to the real point oi Don Quixote, does not im- 
pair his argument. 

Thackeray had the same motive, of course, in his ridicule of Paul Clifford 
and the sentimental-picaresque; not because it was sentimental or picaresque, 
but because it was misleading. In that respect it was he who inherited the 
mantle of Cervantes, as did Fielding before him in his ridicule of Richardson. 

^ "The vices that call for the scourge of satire, are those which pervade the 
whole frame of society, and which, under. some specious pretense of private 
duty, or the sanction of custom and precedent, are almost permitted to assume 
the semblance of virtue." Melincourt, 160. (And here it is the pretense that 
makes it vulnerable.) 

In the Introduction, Maid Marian is described to Shelley as a " comic romance 
of the twelfth century, which I shall make the vehicle of much oblique satire on 
all the oppressions that are done under the sun." 

He became, however, so carried away with the romance that he lost sight of 
the satire, except for brief glimpses. 

In the Preface to Headlong Hall (1837 edition) he rounds up the current 
follies, under the name Pretense: 

"Perfectibilians, deteriorationists, statu-quo-ites, phrenologists, transcenden- 



52 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

and Trollope ^ in conventional imitation of the old school 
speak of castigating vice, but they also in other places 
join the universal chorus against folly, and folly as an 
impostor. 

Disraeli ^ comes in on this: 

"Teach us that pretension is a bore. * * * Catch the 
fleeting colors of that sly chameleon, Cant, and show what 
excessive trouble we are ever taking to make ourselves miserable 
and silly." 

Reade ^ adds a word: 

"Self-deception will probably cease with the first blast of the 
archangel's trumpet; but what human heart will part with it 
till then?" 

talists, political economists, theorists in all sciences, projectors in all arts, 
morbid visionaries, romantic enthusiasts, lovers of music, lovers of the pic- 
turesque, and lovers of good dinners, march, and will march forever, pari passu, 
with the march of mechanics which some facetiously call the march of intellect. 
* * * The array of false pretensions, moral, political, and literary, is as 
imposing as ever; * * * a^id political mountebanks continue, and will 
continue, to puff nostrums and practice legerdemain under the eyes of the mul- 
titude; following * * * a course as tortuous as that of a river, but in 
a reverse process: beginning by being dark and deep, and ending by being 
transparent." 46-7. 

His motto for Crochet Castle is: 

" De monde est plein de fous, et qui n'en veut pas voir. 
Doit se tenir tout seul, et casser son miroir." 

^ "And as I had ventured to take the whip of the satirist in my hand, I went 
beyond the iniquities of the great speculator who robs everybody, and made 
an onslaught also on other vices — on the intrigues of girls who want to get 
married, on the luxury of young men who prefer to remain single, and on the 
pufiEng propensities of authors who desire to cheat the public into buying their 
volumes." Autobiography, speaking of The Way We Live Now. 

Of Framley Parsonage: "The story was thoroughly English. There was a 
little fox-hunting and a little tuft-hunting; some Christian virtue and some 
Christian cant. There was no heroism and no villainy." Autobiography, 129. 

2 The Young Duke, 173. 

' Never Too Late to Mend, 216. 



THECONFLUENCE 53 

Thackeray ^ emphasizes it in his description of that 
little world in which he had an almost unholy interest: 

"Vanity Fair is a very vain, wicked, foolish place, full of all 
sorts of humbugs and falsenesses and pretensions. And while 
the moralist * * * professes to wear neither gown nor 
bands, but only the very same long-eared livery in which his 
congregation is arrayed; yet, look you, one is bound to speak the 
truth as far as one knows it, whether one mounts a cap and 
bells or a shovel hat; and a deal of disagreeable matter must 
come out in the course of such an undertaking." 

Later ^ he takes it out on Becky and her kind: 

"Such people there are living and flourishing in the world — 
Faithless, Hopeless, Charityless; let us have at them, dear 
friends, with might and main. Some there are, and very suc- 
cessful, too, mere quacks and fools; and it was to combat and 
expose such as these, no doubt, that laughter was made." 

Dickens ^ puts it more abstractly: 

"Lest there should be any well-intentioned persons who do 
not perceive the difference between religion and the cant of 
religion, piety and the pretense of piety, a humble reverence for 
the great truths of Scripture and an audacious and offensive 

1 Vanity Fair, I, 104. 

2 Ibid., I, 106. 

Cf. his Preface to The Newcomes: "This, then, is to be a story, may it please 
you, in which jackdaws will wear peacocks' feathers, and awaken the just 
ridicule of the peacocks, in which, while every justice is done to the peacocks 
themse'.ves * * * exception will yet be taken to the absurdity of their 
rickety strut, and the foolish discord of their pert squeaking;" 7. 

^ Preface to Pickwick (1847 edition), xix. 

Cf. his letter to Charles Knight: "My satire is against those who see figures 
and averages, and nothing else — the representatives of the wickedest and most 
enormous vice of this time — and the men who, through long years to come, 
will do more to damage the real, useful truths of political economy than I could 
do (if I tried) in my whole life:" Letters, I, 363. 



54 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

obtrusion of its letter and not its spirit in the commonest dis- 
sensions and meanest affairs of life, to the extraordinary con- 
fusion of ignorant minds, let them understand that it is always 
the latter, and never the former, which is satirized here. Fur- 
ther, that the latter is here satirized as being, according to all 
experience, inconsistent with the former, impossible of union 
with it, and one of the most evil and mischievous falsehoods 
existent in society." 

The theme of The Tragic Comedians is that "The 
laughter of the gods is the lightning of death's irony over 
mortals. Can they have," adds Meredith, "a finer sub- 
ject than a giant gone fool .^" But it is in the Ode to the 
Comic Spirit rather than in stray observations in the 
novels or even in the Essay on Comedy that the Mere- 
dithian satiric philosophy is most pithily set forth. For 
in the myth of Momus and the Olympians, the mirthful 
satirist and the self-satisfied divinities who paid a heavy 
price for their resentment of his incandescent frankness, 
we have a symbol of what satire might do if permitted, 
and if not permitted, what penalties may descend. The 
Comic Spirit is apostrophized as the " Sword of Common 
Sense," whose service and sport it is 

"This shifty heart of ours to hunt." 

Since man is a deceiver and a self-deceiver, 

"Naming his appetites his needs, 
Behind a decorative cloak," 

it is obvious that the only cure for his ailment is the 
simple but drastic one of removing the cloak. So long 
indeed as there are masks, there will be fingers that itch 
to pluck them off. The time may come, — we can scarcely 
affirm that it now is, — when masks shall have vanished 



THE CONFLUENCE 55 

from the faces of a seraphic race. But in the nineteenth 
century they were very much in evidence; and quite as 
palpably in evidence were the spying eyes and the en- 
croaching fingers of the nineteenth-century satirists. 



PART II 
METHODS 



CHAPTER I 

THE ROMANTIC 

The implication behind that sage instruction, "First 
catch your hare," is that after the catching the rest will 
be easy. But, admitting that the second step cannot ante- 
date the first, we are still confronted by the fact that the 
achievement of the first must be followed by the second 
in order to be rendered efficacious. "How serve him up .^ " 
is the next question. 

It is the question of method, the problem of ways and 
means, and a most important one it is in the case of satire, 
for it is here that the element of humor finds its field of 
operations. In its cause and effect satire is serious, nom- 
inally at least. In the connecting link, the means reaching 
from design to end, it must use wit or humor. 

A certain object is perceived by a certain observer to be 
ridiculous. How is he to make it seem ridiculous to other 
observers, whose unaided perception may not equal his? 
He is able to do it by drawing upon the common fund of 
human experience and idea in regard to humor. If the 
satirist can subsume his object under one of the univer- 
sally recognized categories, he makes it ipso facto absurd. 
So automatic is this effect that only the analytic specta- 
tor will stop to question the justice of the classification. 
Socrates dangling in a basket, Volpone caught in his own 
trap, Hudibras gawkily playing the Cavalier, Atticus 
monoplizing the throne but fearful of pretenders, Southey 
routing infernal legions by the mere offer to read aloud his 

S9 



60 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

poem, Ichabod Crane fleeing when only Brom Bones pur- 
sued, — these are ludicrous to the imagination, whether or 
not the sentence is ratified by the intellect. 

Humoristic devices are so numerous as to call for some 
classification, the choice of any one being made at the ex- 
pense of other possibilities. The traditional cleavage be- 
tween the Horatian and the Juvenalian types is charac- 
teristically described by Saintsbury: ^ 

"From Horace and Persius downward there have been two 
satiric manners: — one that of the easy well-bred or would be 
well-bred man of the worid who suspends everything on the 
adunc nose and occasionally scratches with still more adunc 
claws, the other that of the indignant moralist reproving the 
corruptions of the times." 

But by the nineteenth century the indignant moralist 
was considerably subdued, even in England, and his re- 
proof more likely to be acidulous than acrid. For this rea- 
son some other antithesis would seem more useful to our 
present study; and from the fact that our satiric vehicle is 
made on the two general models known as romantic and 
realistic, the same division appears most workable to apply 
to the satiric methods used in fiction. Both terms, how- 
ever, are too nebulous to be used without the precaution 
of stating the sense in which they are at present used. As 
to the former, this statement by Stoddard sums up the sit- 
uation: 2 

"To give an exact definition of what one means by romanti- 
cism, to give anything more than a vague idea of the notion one 
intends to convey when he uses the word romantic, to give a 
single definite conception to a reader by the use of the word 
romance, is impossible." 

1 The Later Renaissance, 113. ^ Evolution of the English Novel, 1 20. 



THE ROMANTIC 6l 

The difficulty about realism is not so much ambiguity 
as the question of its very existence. This, however, need 
not concern us here, as there is no question of its nonex- 
istence in Victorian fiction. Whether or not pure unadul- 
terated realism is a myth was to the Victorians a postulate 
of no moment, for they had no use for it in any case. No 
stage of theirs would ever be set for a Madame Bovary or an 
Old fFives' 'Tale. But while they looked upon their art as 
akin to painting rather than photography, they prided 
themselves on their fidelity to human character and the 
great truths of human life. To them the romantic meant 
the fantastic and incredible, while the realistic signified the 
sane and sober, the possible if not the actual; and in 
this sense we use the terms. 

To these two divisions, it is necessary to add a third as 
a sort of tertium quid, for the ironic method is important 
enough to deserve some special treatment, although not 
correlative with the others. It is conscious indeed of its 
aristocratic superiority to them, although it cannot main- 
tain itself independently but must be allied to one or the 
other. 

Of the dozen names on the roll of Victorian satiric novel- 
ists about half are found in the list of the romantico-satir- 
ical. They seem to come in pairs, and for the sake of sym- 
metry and clearness may be so grouped. The first pair 
are the most distinguished contributors to this section, — 
Peacock and Butler, standing at the two chronological ex- 
tremes. The second pair furnish a medium amount, and 
are themselves forerunners to the main group, though 
their fantastic productions are forty years apart, — Lytton 
and Disraeli. The third pair are of least account here, but 
are of especial importance in the realistic field, — Thack- 
eray and Meredith. 



62 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

Altogether this half dozen men produced nearly two 
dozen items of the romantico-satiric order, none of which 
could be called novels in the strict sense, yet all of which 
are worthy of being included in this list, because of the 
light they throw on the characteristics of the romantic 
method in satire. The largest amount, both actually and 
relatively, is supplied by Peacock, for his seven tales rep- 
resent the bulk of his own output. The smallest is Lyt- 
ton's, represented by only one, and that an aftermath of 
a prolific and versatile energy. Disraeli threw off three 
skits, like Thackeray's half dozen and Meredith's two, in 
being preliminary to later and more substantial work. 
Butler's two, on the contrary, though forming only a frac- 
tion of his stops of various quills, are the most inevitably 
associated with his name, the pair indeed whereby his 
name is known. 

The list covers a period of eighty-five years, though it is 
prolonged over a half century only by the interval of thirty 
years between Erewhon and its sequel. The rest are fairly 
compact, except for Peacock's Rip Van Winkle sleep be- 
tween Crochet Castle and Gryll Grange. A dated table is 
appended for the convenience of a bird*s-eye view.^ 

^ 1816 Headlong Hall 

1817 Melincourt (also Northanger Abbey) 

18 1 8 Nightmare Abbey 
1822 Maid Marian 

1828 The Voyage of Captain Popanilla 

1829 The Misfortunes of Elphin 
1 83 1 Crochet Castle 

1833 Ixion, and The Infernal Marriage 

1839 Catherine 

1 841 The Yellowplush Papers 

1845 ^^^ Legend of the Rhine 

1847 Novels by Eminent Hands 

1849 The Great Hoggarty Diamond 

1850 Rebecca and Rowena 



THEROMANTIC 63 

Returning now to our first parallel, Peacock and Butler, 
we find the parallelism to be rather complete, manifesting 
itself in character, destiny, and product. 

The destiny of both lay in a mean that was not golden. 
Their annals were the long and simple of the fairly well to 
do. Neither knew the exhilaration that comes from pros- 
perity and downright good luck; neither, the depression of 
bitter struggle or disaster. The current of Peacock's prog- 
ress was retarded by the comparative poverty that, like 
Tennyson's, postponed his marriage; and that of Butler 
was obstructed by his family's opposition to his unpardon- 
able preference for a secular career. If the son of a clergy- 
man and the grandson of a bishop could not see his clerical 
duty and do it, there was no help for it, he must go to New 
Zealand. But to banish a youthful radical was only to 
set him free; and to allow him a perspective and a fresh 
viewpoint was to bring down upon orthodoxy an infinite 
deal of mischief. "It was the England that he saw with 
new eyes," says his biographer Harris, "after his return, 
that awakened his restless, satiric vigour. He reacted to 
the English scene as no one else in his century had reacted 
before." ^ 

By temperament Peacock and Butler were both solitary, 
pervaded by a gentle melancholy, and permeated with love 
of classic lore. But Peacock's sadness could take the ironic 
Jonsonian turn. Quite appropriately did he choose "Your 



I8SS 


The Rose and the Ring 


1856 


The Shaving of Shagpat 


1857 


Farina 


1861 


Gryll Grange 


1871 


The Coming Race 


1872 


Erewhon 


1901 


Erewhon Revisited 



1 Samuel Butler, Author of Erewhon, 65. 



64 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

true melancholy breeds your perfect fine wit," as the motto 
for Nightmare Abbey. Butler's persiflage, however, covers 
a more real and permanent pessimism, perhaps because 
it is directed against the spectacle of the wilfully blind 
leading the born blind, rather than against a lot of 
"sentimentalists, chasers after novelty, bilious malcon- 
tents." ^ 

As was natural, neither was acclaimed by the populace, 
and neither cared. Peacock had little concern for the 
British public, which might like him or not, as it pleased; 
and Butler was content to write for the coming gener- 
ation, in whose appreciation he placed a not unjustified 
confidence. Both could afford to publish at their own ex- 
pense and were willing to do so. 

But in spite of their apparent detachment from local 
affairs, and preoccupation with the past, perhaps indeed 
for that very reason, these two thoughtful scholars were 
able to observe their environment keenly and judge it 
shrewdly. It was the total environment that interested 
each one, his own Zeitgeist^ of which neither approved. 
Peacock rebelled against the futile ferment and restless 
experimenting of the first half of the century; Butler pro- 
tested against the torpid acquiescence and smug compla- 
cency of the second. 

These attitudes represent the chief contrast between 
them. Peacock was a calm soul, caught in a vortex. He 
could not be expected to like it. Butler was a specula- 
tive one, pent in a self-satisfied halcyon. He could not 
like that. What each would have been if exchanged in 
time with the other, it were idle to guess. But it was no 
irony of fate that made it the congenial mission of one to 

^ Draper: Social Satire 0/ Thomas Love Peacock. Modern Language Notes, 
XXXIV, I. 



THE ROMANTIC 65 

banter his age into calming down, and of the other to prick 
his into waking up. 

An additional difference, and the main one, is that But- 
ler is the bigger man in every way more searching and 
earnest, more constructive, more versatile, more profound. 
An additional resemblance is that their fiction is so entirely 
in the romantic field ^ that they alone of all on this list 
will not come up for consideration when we reach the other. 

Peacock's novels ^ form probably the most mono- 
morphic little group to be found in literature. His seven 
fantasies have the strong family resemblance of the seven 
vestal maidens in Gryll Grange. Six of the Pleiades ap- 
peared in a compact series within a fifteen-year period; 
and the apparently lost sister joined the constellation 
thirty years later than the latest preceding one. 

Two of them. Maid Marian and 'The Misfortunes of 
Elphiny are in historic costume, and thus afford a chance 
for the inverted satire that comes from a contrast be- 
tween past and present, not to the advantage of the latter. 
The other five are all domiciled in contemporary English 
house parties; in Hall, Court, Abbey, Castle, or Grange. 
These are not, however, the habitations of the conven- 

1 With the exception of The Way of All Flesh; another instance of Butler's 
wider range. 

2 The word novel must of course be stretched if it is to include this set of 
fantastic fiction. But that is easily done by accepting Chesterton's dictum: 
"Now in the sense in which there is such a thing as an epic, in that sense there 
is no such thing as a novel." Charles Dickens, 1 14. 

The other alternative is the one taken by Mrs. Oliphant: "We use the word 
adventurer advisedly, for we cannot regard Peacock's entry into the field of 
fiction as by any means an authorized one. One cannot help feeling that he 
did not want to write novels, but that he found that he could not get at the 
public in any other way; * * * The consequence is that his novels 
are not novels in the proper sense of the word." Victorian Age of English 
Literature, 16. 

Cf. Shaw, of whose dramas a similar statement might be made. 



66 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

tional citizen. They are "Headlong," "Nightmare," 
" Crochet." They harbor all sorts of whimsies and fads. 
Those assembled dine, drink, and talk. Between meals 
they have a few adventures, not recounted for their own 
sake, but that of the additional talk they will bring forth.'- 
Though the repartee of these dramatized Imaginary Con- 
versations is always at concert pitch, it harmonizes with 
the whimsically theatrical setting; and the toute ensemble 
edifies while it sparkles, like a set of fireworks displaying 
maxims of intellectual wit as they explode. 

The characters themselves wear their very names as 
satiric labels. Mr. Feathernest, Mr. Dross, Mrs. Pin- 
money, the Honorable Mr. Listless, Sir Oliver Oilcake, 
the Reverends Gaster, Grovelgrub, Vorax, are ticketed 
after the fashion inherited from the Morality Plays, a 
device that distills a quaint mediaeval odor on the nine- 
teenth-century air, and persists only in some of Trollope's 
minor characters. 

Of all these people exploiting all their "humours" Pea- 
cock is the ever amused spectator. He speaks ironically 
through the voice of the artlessly ambitious Squire 
Crochet: ^ 

"The sentimental against the rational, the intuitive against 
the inductive, the ornamental against the useful, the intense 
against the tranquil, the romantic against the classical; these 
are great and interesting controversies, which I should like, be- 
fore I die, to see satisfactorily settled." 

It is because of this eff^ect of inconsequent raillery, 
doubtless, that Peacock appears to lack humanity,^ and 

^ "The desideratum of a Peacockian character is that he shall be able to talk." 
Freeman: Lije and. Novels of Peacock, 233. 
^ Crochet Castle, 35. 
* "He has knowledge, wit, humour, technical skill, cleverness in abundance^ 



THEROMANTIC (ff 

to laugh without responsibility.* But one feels that such 
criticisms would not have ruffled the twinkling serenity 
of his placid spirit; that he would not have deplored the 
loss of power nor demurred at the penalty. He was a 
born sportsman. The hunting was good. Pleasure to 
him was in pursuit more than possession. Having had 
the fun, he would willingly give away his bag of game be- 
fore he went home. 

One turns with an especial interest to the belated Gryll 
Grange to see what change there may be thirty years 
after, but finds little more than the natural mellowing 
influence of time. He is indeed "satirist to the last," 
albeit he is disposed to use "more oil and less vinegar." ^ 

If Peacock is Horatian, without the Roman's sense of 
realism, Butler is more of a Juvenal, as the latter might 
have been, perhaps, had he lived under Victoria instead 
of Domitian. The wind of invective is now tempered, 
not to the shorn lamb, but to the modern prejudice 
against the rudeness of tempests unmitigated by sun- 
shine. 

Butler's publications, beginning two years after Pea- 
some genius, he is a keen observer, a caustic critic. What he lacks is humanity, 
just that which is the essence of the greatness of the great humourists — Cer- 
vantes, Rabelais, Shakespeare." Walker: Lit. of the Victorian Era, 6l8. (He 
explains that humanity in work is meant, not of character.) 

^ " But because he laughed without responsibility he belongs less with the 
writers of power than with those of whom laughter has exacted a great, as of all 
laughter exacts a certain, penalty." Van Doren, Life of Peacock, 281. 

(One could wish the nature of this "penalty" had been elucidated a bit, in- 
stead of being entirely taken for granted. In any case, it must be largely sub- 
jective, and therefore a thing which exists only by being felt.) 

^ The phrases are Van Doren's and Walker's respectively. Cf. Garnett: 

"It cannot be said that the satire of Gryll Grange is very Archilochian. The 
author has lost the power of raising a laugh at the objects of his dislike, and 
merely assails them with a genial pugnacity, so open, honest, and hearty as 
inevitably to conciliate a certain measure of sympathy." Introduction. 



68 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

cock's had ended,* extended through the next half cen- 
tury, 'The Way of All Flesh and Notebooks being posthu- 
mous. But the three decades bracketed by the two Ere- 
whons were the fertile ones. Through them flowed 
steadily a stream of many currents; satiric, scientific 
(mainly controversial), classic, critical, descriptive, ex- 
pository, musical, and artistic. Of all these volumes only 
three can be classed as fiction, and one of those falls in 
the other group. Our present interest centers upon Ere- 
whon and its sequel. 

There is no more effective satiric machinery than that 
of the Foreign State, or Adventures among Strange People. 
It may take the form of a serious though perhaps fan- 
tastic conception with incidental satire, as in Utopia.^ 
New Atlantis y The Coming Race^ Modern Utopia; or a 
travesty of these, an inverted pyramid, made grotesque 
by the dominating satire, though none the less freighted 
with serious intent, as Gulliver , Journey from This World 
to the Nexty Erewhon. 

From the fact that The Coming Race and Erewhon may 
be cited as examples of the same literary genus, though of 
different species, comes the suggestion that the real com- 
plement of Butler is Lytton. It does happen that they 
furnish the only two instances on our list of the exercise 
of this particular kind of creative fancy. ^ Lytton's tale 
pictures a positive ideal, which satirizes our inadequate 
reality by acting as a foil to it. Butler's narrative por- 
trays a supposed reality, of which the visitor does not 
approve; and his comments satirize our accepted reality 

^ With The First Canterbury Settlement, in 1863. 

* The coincidence that gave the pubHc The Coming Race in 1871, and Erewhon 
in 1872 brought the charge of a possible plagiarism in the latter. If the absurd 
notion that Butler needed any light borrowed from Lytton, is worth expelling, 
Butler's own candid statement about it should be sufficient for the purpose. 



THEROMANTIC 69 

by a subtle, indirect reflection. Our race placed beside 
the "coming" one merely looks small, inferior, incomplete, 
yet all it needs is growth. But if the barrier could be 
leveled between our country and the one Over the Range, 
the two would confront each other and see their own 
images, not as in a glass darkly but as in a brilliant yet 
tricky and distorting mirror. Our actual beliefs and 
practices, shorn of the verbal illusions we have spun 
around them, and pushed to their logical conclusions, 
would become the naked reductio ad absurdum we view 
in the Erewhonian philosophy of illness, crime, science, 
religion, life, and death. ^ 

In Erewhon Revisited we see a mental sequence even 
more interesting than the dramatic sequel. Erewhon was 
followed the very next year by The Fair Haven. The 
former supplies the stage setting, the latter the central 
idea, whose combination makes the Revisit a seemingly 
artless but really astounding tour de Jorce^ an uncanny 
offspring of logic and fancy. 

Given the original situation and the climax that closes 
the Erewhonian adventure, given considerable study and 
meditation on the strange, enshrouded origin of the reli- 
gion which possessed the author's part of the world, 
given a speculative dream as to what might have happened 
in his fabricated autobiography after the event, given 
the Butlerian mind, patient to track and quick to spring, 
and the result is as inevitable as a theorem. One scent, 
and the proficient hound is off", literally hot on the trail, 
nor does he halt till Hanky and Panky, the credulous 

* Cannan says of Erewhon, " Few good books have so many faults, and yet 
it remains the one enduring satire of the nineteenth century." Samuel Butler, 32. 

(Whether the of means directed against or produced by, the verdict is un- 
doubtedly valid.) 



JO SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

mob, Sunchildism itself, are fairly run down and given 
a good fright, though finally let off with a shaking that 
leaves them limp. 

The dramatic canvas on which this satiric design is 
drawn is worthy a Cervantes, a Swift, or a Defoe; a 
beautiful example of the "grave, impossible, great lie,** 
absorbing if not convincing. Butler's stories, more than 
any in this group, show constructive art; length that is 
enough and not too much, sufficient swiftness, coherence, 
and climax. They are fanstatic but not flimsy. The 
imagination is captivated, as always, by the introduction 
to a strange, new land; the intellect is aroused by the 
significance of the panorama rapidly unfolding; the imp 
of mischief that dwells in all normal human hearts is 
delighted at the deft overthrow of certain conventional 
idols, now shown to be ugly, inane, and clay from the feet 
up; and all this through a concrete, realistic medium that 
can be visualized and lived in. We share the excitement 
of finding and crossing the range, of the capture and 
imprisonment of the "foreign devil" who is at least a 
dare-devil, of his later success, and astounding elopement. 
We sympathize with Mr. Nosnibor, voluntarily fined and 
flogged; and we feel quite at home in the Musical Banks 
and the Law Courts. 

In the sequel we renew old acquaintances and make 
some new ones. We admire the executive ability of 
Yram, seconded by that of her able son George. We 
participate in the suspense at the Dedication Ceremony, 
are relieved after the dinner table council, and finally well 
satisfied when the Bridgeport schemers are discomfited 
but nobody Blue-Pooled. 

It is the business of the raconteur y romantic as well as 
realistic, to beguile his audience into acquiescence even of 



THE ROMANTIC 7I 

the incredible. But the romancing satirist has the anom- 
alous task of creating a story good enough to be its own 
reward and then not allowing it to be. It must have 
all the air of being an end in itself the while it is being 
made the means to another end. This adroit manipula- 
tion whereby the idea appears subordinate to the plot, 
although the reverse is the case, is a point in which Butler 
surpasses the others on our list and ranks with the highest 
at large. ^ 

But the idea itself was a premature blossom, and the 
winds of March, though late Victorian, were ruthless. 
About that time, however, it was the much more massive 
figure of Ibsen that happened to stand in the main cur- 
rent of the blasts, and Butler was merely blown aside 
and left until Shaw and the Twentieth Century came along 
and picked him up. One of his recent biographers has a 
serious time trying to establish him as the laws of chro- 
nology would dictate, and finally decides it cannot be 
done: ^ 

"How is it possible to fit a man like Butler, * * * into 
any system, * * * how are we to classify one who, above 

1 One's astonishment that it was Meredith who had the honor of rejecting 
the manuscript oi Erewhon, submitted to Chapman and Hall, is exceeded only 
by the astonishment at the reason given, — that it was a philosophical treatise, 
not likely to interest the general public. One would hardly accuse this critic 
of a conservative reluctance to expose the public to iconoclastic bacilli, though 
he had not yet become the author of Beauchamp's Career, nor would one suppose 
his "pubHc" to be composed entirely of tired business men and sentimental 
school girls. There remain the two cruxes in the history of satire: failure of the 
satirist Thackeray to appreciate the satirist Swift, and of the satirist Meredith 
to appreciate the satirist Butler. If they prove anything it is the diversity 
among satirists. 

2 Harris: Samuel Butler, Author of Erewhon, 13. 

Cf. Chesterton's whimsical remark that "the best definition of the Victorian 
Age is that Francis Thompson stood outside it." 



72 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

all Others, belonged to no school, was traceable, it may fairly 
be said, to no influence at all direct in character, looking back 
to, and fitting in with, none of those particular habits of thought 
at any rate in the age just preceding and merging into his own? 
On an external view, of course, it might be maintained that 
Butler harmonized with the solid, scientific background of 
Victorian thought — harmonized with it, yet was not of it. 
Again * * * one might quite easily say that Samuel Butler 
stood outside the Victorian system. And this would be the 
truest description of him.'* 

The parallel noted above between the next two on the 
list, Lytton and Disraeli, is more applicable to their work 
in the realistic field than in this, for the reason already 
stated, that Lytton's one contribution, The Coming RacCy 
is more akin to Butler's, both in date and design. 

Accident rather then enterprise led to the discovery of 
Lytton's Utopian people, the Vril-ya, for they inhabit the 
concave inner surface of our own planet, and are to be 
reached only through a subterranean chasm leading down 
from the depths of a mine. The citizens of this highly 
cultivated nation regard the English intruder as a primi- 
tive barbarian, and despise him for his ignorance and 
his crude, carnivorous habits. Deciding, however, to spare 
his life and risk his presence until proved contaminating 
and pernicious, they proceed to educate him by means of 
the Vril Trance, a sort of telepathic radio-activity. The 
process is mutual, except that they accomplish more, — 
"partly because my language was much simpler than 
theirs, comprising far less of complex ideas; and partly be- 
cause their organization was, by hereditary culture, much 
more ductile, and more readily capable of acquiring knowl- 



edge than mine." ^ 



The Coming Race, 47. 



THEROMANTIC 73 

Being adopted, the invader is treated with indulgent 
condescension, nicknamed Tishj a froglet, (in allusion to 
the Great Batrachian Theory, that humans sprang from 
frogs, or, according to one branch of the school, degen- 
erated from them), and allowed to roam around with a 
child, who is about his equal in intellect. All goes well 
until the politely tolerated guest has the temerity to fall 
in love with a native maiden. This means death, by the 
painless Vril method (a marvelous application of electric- 
ity), in order to prevent the disgrace of so uneugenic an 
alliance; and the calamity is averted only by the skill 
and resourcefulness of the lady herself, who manages to re- 
turn the unwelcome wooer to his native outer clime. This 
is made possible through the use of wings, another inven- 
tion of this advanced people.^ 

The story has considerable picturesqueness, nor does it 
fail in point. The Modern Utopia of Wells is anticipated in 
the emphasis on sanitation and material welfare. As in 
Looking Backward, crime is eliminated through the elim- 
ination of poverty and disease. The dramatic conclu- 
sion is that this underground people are to be the coming 
race, against whom we must be prepared if we would not 
by them be conquered and exterminated. The philosoph- 
ical conclusion, however, is the old paradox, the inescap- 
able dilemma of stagnant perfection. ^ 

^ Women were the wooers and choosers in this feministic community, but the 
problem of feminism was apparently solved by the practice of voluntary re- 
linquishment of wings, by the feminine wearerr, efter marriage, and a strict 
devotion to the domestic life. 

^"And where a society attains to a moral standard in which there are no 
crimes and no sorrows from which tragedy can extract its aliment of pity and 
sorrow, no salient vices or follies on which comedy can lavish its mirthful satire, 
it has lost its chance of producing a Shakespeare, a Moliere, or a Mrs. Beecher 
Stowe." The Coming Race, 230. 



74 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

Disraeli's Popanilla was a jeu d' esprit of his youth, 
and develops an opposite situation from that of the pre- 
ceding. Instead of the Britisher abroad, he pictures the 
foreigner in England, thus affording us a chance to see our- 
selves as others see us.^ 

The mechanism by which this new scrutiny is brought 
to bear upon our old establishments is well worn and fa- 
miliar, but has some novelty in the application. A sailor's 
chest is washed ashore on a remote island, and found by 
one of the aborigines, Popanilla, who becomes inoculated 
with ambition through perusal of some documents dis- 
covered therein. He immediately organizes a proselyting 
campaign, but encounters too much opposition from a re- 
calcitrant public to make much headway. The people are 
well content with their present peaceful existence, and 
quite averse to receiving the serpent of aspiration in their 
idyllic though socially sophisticated Garden of Eden. 
They are provokingly obtuse even to the argument that 
"they might reasonably expect to be the terror and aston- 
ishment of the universe, and to be able to annoy every na- 
tion of any consequence." ^ Finally to settle the trouble 
caused by the convert's tactless propaganda, which has 
had the lamentable effect of inducing the young men to 
desert society for politics, the king orders the disturber 
of the peace to be set adrift, and bids him farewell with 
this encouraging prophecy: ' 

"As the axiom of your school seems to be that everything 
can be made perfect at once, without time, without experience, 

^ After the manner of Defoe's Turkish Merchant: the Conduct of Christians 
Made the Sport of Infidels, and others of this type. 

2 Popanilla, 380. The ensuing debate is made the peg for some vivacious 
burlesque on Parliamentary speeches. 

3 Ibid., 385. 



THE ROMANTIC 75 

without practice, and without preparation, I have no doubt, 
with the aid of a treatise or two, you will make a consummate 
naval commander, although you have never been at sea in the 
whole course of your life." 

This is not exactly the destiny of the involuntary voy- 
ager, but his luck is good. In due time he lands on the 
shores of Vraibleusia, and forthwith meets Mr. Skindeep, 
an instantaneous guide and friend, if not a philosopher, 
whom he accompanies with implicit trust, "for, having 
now known him nearly half a day, his confidence in his 
honour and integrity was naturally unbounded." ^ 

As Popanilla becomes introduced to the best people 
of Hubbadub, the capital, the resources of his own coun- 
try arouse interest, and an expedition of vast commercial 
enterprise is headed for the Isle of Fantaisie. Failure to 
find it precipitates a panic and leads to the imprisonment 
of its representative, for exciting hopes under false pre- 
tenses. However, a happy ending is secured by a legal 
coup d'etat^ and a solution of all problems announced by 
Mr. Flummery Flam, who has discovered that "it was 
the great object of a nation not to be the most powerful, 
or the richest, or the best, or the wisest, but to be the most 
Flummery-Flammistical." ^ 

In Disraeli's two little classical burlesques, published 
five years after Popanilla^ still another device is used. 
There is neither an Englishman in Italy, nor an Italian 
in England, but the ancient stage of Greek mythology is 
made the background for a thinly disguised modern sa- 
tiric drama. Familiar characters and incidents are seen 
masquerading in equally familiar costumes and scenes, but 
the former are local and current, and the latter revived 
from a far past. 

^ Popanilla, 394. ^ Ibid., 459. The whole is in ridicule of Utilitarianism. 



76 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

There is none of Browning's seriousness in Disraeli's 
interpretation of Ixion. His story is utilized because it 
offers tempting chances for saucy, allusive comment on 
mundane affairs. A journey through space inevitably sug- 
gests the humor of proportion; but Ixion and Mercury 
give us not the grave irony of Byron's Cain and Lucifer, 
nor the rollicking yet pensive mirth of Mark Twain's Cap- 
tain Stormfield. They are content with clever jocularity. 

For instance, as they graze a certain star, Ixion inquires 
who live there. " Some low people who are trying to shine 
into notice," is the haughty reply. " 'Tis a parvenu 
planet, and only sprung into space within this century. 
We do not visit them." ^ 

During his brief but splendid sojourn on Olympus the 
guest is postured as a complacent, insolent, Barry Lyndon 
sort of rascal, who makes himself perfectly at home in the 
divine dining and drawing rooms (which are, of course, 
conducted according to the British code of etiquette), ful- 
fills Cupid's prediction that he will write in Minerva's al- 
bum, though he does manage to escape her "Platonic man- 
trap," carries on his intrigue with the Queen of Heaven 
in the Don Juan manner, and meets his detection and pun- 
ishment with supercilious assurance and a final triumphant 
taunt. 

The Infernal Marriage of Proserpine to Pluto intro- 
duces a disturbing element into the ancien regime of Hades. 
The new and influential bride stirs up a terrible political 
turmoil by interfering in the matter of Orpheus and Eury- 
dice, and the consequence is quite disastrous. The con- 
servative Fates and Furies are so incensed that they neg- 
lect their disciplinary duties, whereby the radical Sisyphus, 
Tantalus, and Ixion obtain a respite from torture and a 

^ Ixion, 272. 



THEROMANTIC 77 

dangerous opportunity to talk politics. The phrases 
"Ministry Out," "Formation of New Cabinet," are ban- 
died about. Finally a change of scene is prescribed for the 
Queen. Her departure is celebrated by an elaborate ban- 
quet and a magnificent procession,^ and we left to infer 
that the future belongs to the reactionaries. 

We, however, follow the fortunes of Proserpine, who 
dwells for a season in Elysium, after a visit en route to the 
dethroned Saturn, who discusses with her The Spirit of 
the Age. Elysian society is of course the English of Dis- 
raeli's set; gay, graceful, complacent, and malicious. The 
finest gentleman there is Achilles; the worst cad is ^Eneas, 
who would fain make up with the now popular Dido, but 
being repulsed, must content himself with becoming head 
of the Elysian saints and president of a society to induce 
Gnomes - to drink only water. 

In form these last two productions belong to the general 
division of burlesque. There are also touches of travesty 
in Peacock.^ But the main instances of this type of the 
grotesque are found in the two writers who filled in this 
line the interval betwen the last of Disraeli's, in 1833, and 
the last of Peacock's, in 1861. During the forties and 
first half of the fifties stood Thackeray, monopolist of par- 
ody and caricature. Immediately following came the two 
contributions of Meredith to satiric persiflage. In both 
cases this fantastic stuff formed the preliminary to the real 
work, being merely the romantic avenue by which two of 
the greatest realistic satirists came into their own kingdom. 

It happens, therefore, that though the quantity of this 

* A prominent feature of this is a white ass (the Public) which the prime 
minister leads by the nose. 
^ The laborers. 
' These two are alike in their handling of sparkling dialogue. 



78 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

early product is sizable enough, its rank is comparatively 
low. It is overshadowed by the others on the list because 
in it the fun and nonsense is predominant and the critical 
element so slight as to be negligible; and it is overshad- 
owed still more by the more mature genius of the authors 
themselves. 

It is natural that the burlesque should have been a fa- 
vorite satiric mode from Aristophanes to Rostand and 
Shaw. The wit it requires is imitative rather than crea- 
tive, and its appeal is instantaneous. 

It is also natural that it should manifest itself at the be- 
ginning of a writer's career, and form a prelude to greater 
achievement. This is the case for good and sufficient 
psychological reasons. In youth the exuberant and un- 
disciplined spirit, not yet checked by the reins of reality, 
riots in the glory of extravagance; the inventive faculty 
is awake but unfurnished by experience with material 
for original creation; the critical scent is keen but un- 
practiced, and impatient of sober, qualified judgment.^ 
Such a condition is prime for the production of a Love's 
Labour s Lostj a Joseph Andrews^ a Northanger Abbey, 
a Pickwick, a Barry Lyndon, a Shaving of Shagpat; to be 
followed by Twelfth Night, Tom Jones, Emma, David 
Copperfield, Vanity Fair, The Egoist. 

Thackeray's apprenticeship at this desk was rather 

^Walker's dictum (^Victorian Literature, 700) that "Good burlesque is im- 
possible except through sound criticism," is an instance of the dangerous half 
truth. The sounder the criticism the better the burlesque, to be sure, but only 
as criticism: as burlesque it may be highly successful in spite of some critical 
unsoundness. Indeed, it must necessarily contain the element of injustice that 
inheres in all exaggeration, — the very foundation of burlesque and caricature. 

Moreover, Walker's conception of the burlesque is indicated when he calls 
Rebecca and Rowena " perhaps the best burlesque ever penned." As a matter 
of fact, it is not only far from that preeminence, but it is in form actually less of 
a burlesque than most of the others under consideration. 



THEROMANTIC 79 

unduly prolonged, covering about half the period of his 
literary activity; and its output is difficult to segregate 
on account of the ambiguous description of much of his 
early work. But from the large mass of sketches, essays, 
skits, stories, perhaps half a dozen may be selected as 
being fairly within the limits of satirico-romance. 

Two of them, the Hoggarty Diamond and the Yellow- 
plush Papers^ are on the border line, included here only 
because too exaggerated and irresponsible to be otherwise 
classed. The same might be said of Barry Lyndon^ which 
is not far from being a real novel. Yet perhaps none of 
these are more "grotesque" than some phases of legiti- 
mate fiction. Much of their humor comes from the dra- 
matic monologue device. Five are roughly definable as 
burlesques: three — Catherine ^ A Legend of the Rhine ^ and 
T^he Rose and the Ring^ of types; the other two. Novels by 
Eminent Hands ^ and Rebecca and Rowena, of individuals; 
yet here again, classification is misleading, as these lat- 
ter are versus the/orms of certain productions rather than 
their authors. 

Meredith's Farina is an interesting companion piece to 
Thackeray's Rhine Legend, both having a Teutonic and 
chivalric background, and one might perhaps find a 
closer parallel there than in the one chosen by Moffat, 
who traces "reminiscences of Peacock in the fantastic 
element which occasionally crops up," in Meredith, and 
points out that the idea underlying Farina and Maid 
Marian is "substantially the same — an attempt to re- 
produce with gentle satire, the medieval romance of sen- 
timent and gay adventure." It is true, however, that 
A Legend of the Rhine differs from both these in its mock- 
ing parade of anachronisms and telescoped chronology. 
It was "many, many hundred thousand years ago" that 



8o SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

Thackeray's German knight was pricking o'er the plain, 
but it was in the time of Richard the Lion-Hearted, and 
"on the cold and rainy evening of Thursday, the twenty- 
sixth of October." In addition to his full armor he was 
equipped with an oiled silk umbrella and a bag with a 
brazen padlock. 

On a subsequent adventure he halts at a wayside shrine 
covered with "odoriferous cactuses and silvery magnolias," 
and recites "a censer, an ave, and a couple of acolytes 
before it." A victim of his mighty lance wishes for a 
notary-public to take down his dying deposition. And a 
lost champion is advertised for in the Allgemeine Zeitung. 

The Shaving of Shagpat out-Herods Herod in Arabian 
Nightism, and is not devoid of satiric pith, but we are 
expressly forbidden by the author himself to allegorize 
his geyser of ebullient mirth. The humor is Rabelaisian — 
or American — in its pure love of size; it floats in a gigan- 
tic, inflated balloon, to which a small basket of mental 
cargo is attached. In this, however, is wrapped up the 
very important secret that continuous laughter releases 
one from enchantment and restores one's true form. 

The romantic satirist must have, like any other com- 
pound, certain more or less inconsistent traits. There 
must be the inventive wit of romance plus the shrewd 
logic of satire. Yet this rare combination does not in- 
sure the best satiric results. Indeed the contrary is more 
likely to be the case, as the union at best is somewhat 
adventitious. 

Then, too, there must be a degree of exaggeration, with 
the strain on our credulity so evenly distributed that it 
is not felt. The sound sense that satire calls for ^ must 

1 "Heroes and gods make other poems fine; 

Plain Satire calls for sense in every line." Young: Universal Passion. 



THE ROMANTIC bl 

maintain her operations, the while she is masquerading 
as arrant nonsense. 

Finally there is the dilemma encountered by the drama- 
tist, — the necessity of concentrating high lights as life 
never does, yet preserving sufficient effect of dullness and 
vapid inanity to simulate reality as we know it. 

The various kinds of artifice employed in this artificial 
process are all found in the examples on our list. Re- 
moteness of time lends illusion to Maid Mariariy Legend 
of the Rhiney Farina; remoteness of place, to 'The Coming 
Race J and the Erewhons; non-human characters, to Melin- 
courtj Ixion, Shaving of Shagpat; anomalous situations, to 
Misfortunes of Elphin and Popanilla. Some are able to 
combine them all, notably Lytton and Butler.^ Some, 
on the other hand, manage to create a maximum impression 
with a minimum use of the spectacular. 

Peacock, for instance, never leaves England nor gives 
us any but English characters, quiet if not actually 
subdued, and usually unexceptionable in behavior. 
Disraeli is really as circumscribed. He apparently trans- 
ports us to Heaven, Hades, some unsuspected isle in the 
far seas, but he actually conveys all these to the isle 
where he was born. Thackeray and even Meredith keep 
strictly to terra firma. 

If it were desirable to make comparisons with a view 

^ In one of Lytton's first volumes is an observation interesting as perhaps 
the germ from which the plan of The Coming Race was developed. 
Vincent, the philosopher of the story, remarks. (Pelham, 57): 
"There are few better satires on a civilized country than the observations of 
visitors less polished; while, on the contrary, the civilized traveller, in describing 
the manners of the American barbarians, instead of conveying ridicule upon 
the visited, points the sarcasm on the visitor; and Tacitus could not have 
thought of a finer or nobler satire on the Roman luxuries than that insinuated 
by his treatise on the German simplicity." 



82 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

to determining whether any particular ingredient made 
for success in this sort, we might observe the connection 
between originality and exaggeration in their relation to 
effectiveness. Evidence from the data seems to indicate 
that satiric value, estimated by weight and pertinence 
of ideas, is in direct proportion to the amount of inventive 
wit; but in irregular or even inverse ratio to extravaganza 
or caricature. 

For example, the general order of both satiric and con- 
structive excellence, is approximately as follows, — listed 
in an ascending series: Meredith, Thackeray, Lytton, 
Disraeli, Peacock, Butler. But to reach a climax of 
pure fantasy we would pass from Thackeray through 
Peacock, Disraeli, Butler, and Lytton, to Meredith. Ex- 
aggeration does not seem, therefore, to inhere in satire 
though it may enhance it. 

The chief advantage of the fantastic is that it gives 
unfettered play to whatever fancy the mind is endowed 
with; and it enlists a naturally too serious Criticism 
under the brilliant banner of Wit. That its attractions 
are many is proved by its distinguished history; for en- 
rolled among the members of this versatile society are 
such names as Reynard the FoXj Romance of the Rose, 
Piers P/owman, Don ^uixote^ Dunciad, Gulliver, Don Juan. 

Few on our list deserve comparison with these; none 
perhaps except Erewhon. Peacock's name might have a 
place, not for any one tale but for the toute ensemble. 
What one of Disraeli's biographers ^ says of Popanilla, 
that it is "a work of the same kind as Swift's Gulliver* s 

^ Mill : Disraeli, the Author, Orator, and Statesman, 20. 

He adds, — "although we cannot claim for it the merit of that matchless 
production, still, regarding it as a work of a very young man, it is to our thinking 
one of infinite promise." 



THE ROMANTIC 83 

'Travels" is true enough, but would be more to the point 
if the Travels had been confined to Laputa. 

Not only are our modern instances comparatively light 
in quality, but restricted in range. The fable, for ex- 
ample, is not represented at all, nor the allegory, though 
both forms have had a sort of revival in even more recent 
times. These deficiencies, if such they are, are easily 
accounted for by the fact that in the nineteenth century 
realism (in the liberal sense) was having its day, that it 
had taken especial possession of the Victorian novel, 
particularly in its satiric aspect, so that such scattered 
fantasies as we have may be regarded as the crumbs from 
an opulent table. 

The marks of the satiric extravaganza are wit, inven- 
tion, and exaggeration. In a general way the opposites 
of these may be called respectively humor, interpretation, 
and exposure; and it may be premised that these last 
will be found the characteristics of satiric realism. 

Another contrast that may be anticipated is that when 
romance is used as a satiric vehicle it is built expressly 
for that purpose and carries its passenger in solitary state; 
while realism is a public carry-all, in which this fare is 
allowed a place along with the others. 

Whether further generalization as to relative effective- 
ness is possible is a question that must be deferred until 
after the discussion of the complementary type. 



CHAPTER II 

THE REALISTIC 

Realism in Victorian fiction, as we need only to be re- 
minded, means not strictly that which is, but liberally 
that which might be. Its field is nominally the Actual 
but it encroaches unhesitatingly on the domain of the 
Probable, laps over into the Improbable, and barely halts 
at the Impossible. These expansive habits make it not 
incompatible with the Romantic, which indeed, in its so- 
berer aspects, is a constant factor in the English novel up 
to and including this period. 

Romanticism is reduced to a minimum by Maria Edge- 
worth, Jane Austen, Mrs. Gaskell, and Anthony Trol- 
lope,^ but the majority of our novelists have not been thus 
content to present life in its everyday garb, neat and pros- 
perous enough, it may be, but neutral, inane, diffuse, in- 
conclusive. They have insisted in the name of decorum 
and dignity on the dress costume and company manners 
which in civilized society are a prerequisite to public ap- 
pearance and conspicuous position. Life is still life and 
not an impostor, even when robed in its best with some 
artifice of color and ornament and some evidence of de- 
cisive purposefulness in mien and bearing. 

^ Perhaps pardon should be asked on behalf of the irresponsible Circumstance 
which allowed so large a preponderance in this matter to the sex notoriously 
romantic, flighty, ignorant of real life, and impatient of its prose and drudgery. 
As to the one man, Bryce remarks, in his Studies in Contemporary Biography, 
" But whoever does read Trollope in 1930 will gather from his pages better 
than from any others an impression of what everyday life was like in England 
in the 'middle Victorian* period." 

84 



THE REALISTIC 85 

But however romantic in effect, the nineteenth-century 
novel was realistic in intent, and we may in a measure 
take the will for the deed. Of this devotion to reality we 
have several testimonies, from such important witnesses 
as Trollope, Dickens, Thackeray; but two are of especial 
interest as they come from two of the most undeniable ro- 
manticists, Lytton and Bronte. 

In her Preface to the belated edition of The Professor^ 
Charlotte Bronte declared her own preference for a de- 
piction of a normal and unadorned existence to be thwarted 
by the lack of editorial enthusiasm. After stating the 
condition of things she adds — 

"* * * ^j^g publishers in general scarcely approved of 
this system, but would have liked something more imaginative 
and poetical — something more consonant with a highly wrought 
fancy, with a taste for pathos, with sentiments more tender, 
elevated, unworldly. Indeed, until an author has tried to dis- 
pose of a manuscript of this kind he can never know what 
stores of romance and sensibility lie hidden in breasts he would 
not have suspected of casketing such treasures." 

An accurate description of Victorianism is contained 
in this ironic indictment, and perhaps also an explanation 
of the romantic trend of its realism on the ground of the 
law of supply and demand as well as that of natural pro- 
pensity. 

Lytton prided himself prodigiously on his true rendering 
of life, though of his two dozen novels, The Caxtons alone 
approaches the realistic type, and pictures in one of his 
heroes ^ a phase at least of his artistic ideal : 

"The humblest alley in a crowded town had something 
poetical for him; he was ever ready to mix in a crowd, if it were 

^ Ernest Maltr avers, 32. Cf. How It Strikes a Contemporary. 



86 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

only gathered round a barrel-organ or a dog fight, and listen 
to all that was said, and notice all that was done. And this 
I take to be the true poetical temperament essential to every 
artist who aspires to be something more than a scene-painter." 

That the satirical element in this romantico-realistic 
form of fiction should be characterized by humor, expo- 
sure, and comparative rarity, instead of wit, exaggeration, 
and ubiquity, is inevitable, since the former qualities ac- 
cord not only with realism but with one another. 

Humor is the comic sense which is amused by things as 
they are, whereas wit either creates the absurdity or fer- 
rets it out of obscurity. Hence the former is allied to the 
actual more than to the fanciful, and uses the method of 
simple disclosure rather than caricature. While therefore 
the imaginative energy of wit is dynamic, that of humor 
is more quiescent, being sufficiently exercised by its func- 
tion of interpretation, of showing wherein lurks the spirit 
of the laughable, however grave and solemn the appear- 
ance to the unseeing eye. 

Where the quality of the satire is of this realistic order, 
the quantity must necessarily be restricted and more or 
less incidental rather than dominant; subdued, not ram- 
pant. For the true satirical humorist, seeing life steadily 
and whole, observes that while certain parts of it are un- 
questionably absurd, whether flauntingly or subtly so, 
these ludicrous shreds and patches, absolutely integral 
and ineradicable as they are, are nevertheless only a por- 
tion and not so large a one, of the stupendous whole. 

Neither that astigmatic visualizer, the cynic, who re- 
gards life itself as a huge joke on its victims, nor that my- 
opic spectator, the misanthrope, who conceives humanity 
as an unmitigated jest on creation, was a Victorian favorite. 
Both are blind to certain phenomena, — beauty, power. 



THEREALISTIC 87 

exquisite delicacy, tremendous strength, — which also ex- 
ist, which even the pessimist grants to be compensatory, 
and which, when genuine, are utterly beyond the reach 
of any ridicule that pretends to sanity or justice. Such 
then, — humorously truthful and suitably proportioned, — 
is the general character of the satiric stratum which runs, 
widening and narrowing, through the great vein of Vic- 
torian fiction. 

In the legitimate novel there are two main devices of 
revealing the ludicrous; the direct, whereby the author 
in his own reflections and comments points it out; and the 
dramatic, whereby he shows it by means of incident and 
character. The latter method is again subdivisible into 
two modes, by the use of the two contrasting types of ac- 
tors, humorous and humorists. The first are allowed to 
betray themselves, their very unconsciousness adding to 
the piquancy of the situation. For this the favorite tech- 
nical tool is the dramatic monologue. The second are the 
witty protagonists. They stand in loco scriptoris and ex- 
press that detection of absurdity for which the humorless 
humorous furnish the occasion.^ 

When we consult our original list, we find the two ex- 
tremes have been cut off, as Peacock and Butler belong 
entirely to the other department. The remaining eleven 
have produced about one hundred twenty novels in the 
stricter sense, not including short stories, tales, sketches, 
or burlesques. It must be noted that this restriction rules 

^ These types may be summarized for convenience in a topical outline: 

I. Direct. 

II. Dramatic. 

1. Situation. 

2. Character. 

a. Witty protagonists. 

b. Comical antagonists. 



88 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

out some items important as literature, and in certain 
cases as satire, — Cranfordy Pickwicky Peg Wofingtoriy 
Scenes from Clerical Life. 

Of the grand total, approximately one-quarter is elim- 
inated as being essentially and thoroughly serious. Here 
again are found some notable names, — Last Days of Pom- 
peii, Mary Barton, Henry Esmond, 'Tale of Two Cities, The 
Cloister and the Hearth, Jane Eyre, Hypatia. Three-fourths 
is a large majority, from which one might deduce that the 
novel of this period was prevailingly satirical. But the 
other extreme, those so strongly saturated as to deserve 
the name of satires, are far fewer than the unsatirical. 
Vanity Fair, Martin Chuzzlewit, The Egoist, possibly Bar- 
chester Towers, and Beauchamp'' s Career, practically ex- 
haust the list. This leaves about four score of novels in 
which the spirit of satire exists, manifesting itself 
showily, coyly, in wide range and diversity. 

When an author uses the direct method for the convey- 
ance of satirical ideas, he becomes for the nonce a didactic, 
though humor-flavored, philosopher. Over against the 
artistic liabilities incurred, — interruption of the narrative, 
intrusion of more or less irrelevant matter, may be 
placed the intellectual assets, — presentation of opinions 
and conclusions, and frank expression of personality. 

Whether approved of or not, this discursive habit must 
be accepted as an old inheritance. From the beginning, 
the English novel has been a hybrid, the drama grafted on 
the treatise. Even the medieval mind, with its insatiable 
relish for the pageantry of life, had an uneasy feeling that 
the Merry Tale should not be entirely its own reward, and 
accordingly found for it a moral justification, whereby 
pleasure and profit were joined in a most complacent al- 
liance. And ever since, the prevailing purpose has been 



THEREALISTIC 89 

not only to portray life but to exhibit this or that deduc- 
tion about life. 

In the eighteenth century this tendency took definite 
shape and substance, for then it became notably true that 
the division between narrative and essay was not coincident 
with a division between narrators and essayists. Swift, 
Addison, Defoe, Fielding, Sterne, were both. And it was 
their mantle and not that of romance writers, Gothic or 
Historical, that best fitted Victorian shoulders. Of the 
many testimonies to this, direct and indirect, the follow- 
ing from a characteristic Victorian pen may be cited as 
evidence: ^ 

"The reader of a novel — who had doubtless taken the volume 
up simply for amusement, and who would probably lay it down 
did he suspect that instruction, like a snake-in-the-grass, like 
physic beneath the sugar, was to be imposed upon him — re- 
quires from his author chiefly this, that he shall be amused by 
a narrative in which elevated sentiment prevails, and gratified 
by being made to feel that the elevated sentiments described are 
exactly his own." 

He then goes on to show that this morality is best served 
by realism, in spite of the superior attractions of heroes 
and villains: ^ 

"But for one Harry Esmond, there are fifty Ralph Newtons — 
five hundred and fifty of them; and the ver\- youth whose 
bosom glows with admiration as he reads of Harr}' — who exults 
in the idea that as Harry did, so would he have done — lives as 
Ralph lived, is less noble, less persistent, less of a man even 
than was Ralph Newton. 

"It is the test of a novel-writer's art that he conceals his 
snake-in-the-grass; but the reader may be sure that it is always 

1 Trollope; Ralph the Heir, 275. * Ibid., 275-276. 



90 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

there. * * * In writing novels, we novelists preach to you 
from our pulpits, and are keenly anxious that our sermons shall 
not be inefficacious. * * * Nevertheless, the faults of a 
Ralph Newton, and not the \-ices of a Vamey or a Barr\' Lyndon, 
are the evils against which men should in these days be taught 
to guard themselves — which women also should be made to 
hate. Such is the writer's apology for his ver\'^ indifferent hero, 
Ralph the Heir." 

In another volume ^ the same writer confesses, — 

"Castles with unknown passages are not compatible with my 
homely muse. I would as lief have to do with a giant in my 
book — a real giant, such as Goliath — as with a murdering 
monk with a scowling eye. The age for such delights is, I 
think, gone. We may say historically of Mrs. Radcliffe's time 
that there were mysterious sorrows in those days. They are 
now as much out of date as the giants." 

Victorianism of course had her own sorrows, patent and 
unmysterious as they were. At no time could she have 
been mistaken for Elizabethanism. But she grew gradu- 
ally in strength and sobriety, and cast a heavier shadow 
in the afternoon of the century. In its mid-morning Dis- 
raeli could compliment his own Yowng Duke with the sub- 
title, "a moral tale though gay." And the chief ambition 
of the young writers up to the early forties seems to have 
been to produce tales that were gay though moral. 

Of this tendency Lytton is the most conspicuous ex- 
ample. Innately serious and thoroughly sentimental, he 
nevertheless dared not be as solemn as he could. He must 
live up to the requirement for ironic wit and the light 
touch of sa'jior faire^ even though, lacking native exuber- 
ance and somewhat deficient in taste, he often fell into 

1 The Bertrams, 150. 



THEREALISTIC 91 

the slough of facetiousness, or at least lapsed into child- 
ish jocularity. 

To quote him at his best, however, we take a few ex- 
cerpts from the last of his trilogy of domestic novels. In 
the second of the series, My iVo:'c'/,he had adapted the pref- 
atory device of T^om Jones^ using the remarks of the Cax- 
ton family as a sort of introductory (or more properly, ret- 
rospective) chorus to each book. In JFhat Will He Do \vitb 
Ity the idea is carried out on a smaller scale, in expository 
paragraphs preliminary to chapters. The following will 
be sufficient to indicate the tone: 

Book I 

Chapter XII 

"In which it is shown that a man does this or declines to do 
that for reasons best kno\\Ti to himself — a reser^-e which is 
extremely conducive to the social interests of a community; 
since the conjecture into the origin and nature of those reasons 
stimulates the inquiring faculties, and fumishes the staple of 
modem conversation. And as it is not to be denied that, if 
their neighbors left them nothing to guess at, three fourths of 
civilized humankind, male or female, would have nothing to 
talk about; so we cannot too gratefully encourage that needful 
curiosity, termed by the inconsiderate tittle-tattle or scandal, 
which saves the vast majority of our species from being reduced 
to the degraded condition of dumb animals." 

Chapter X\^ 
"The historian records the attachment to public business 
which distinguishes the British Legislator — Touching instance 
of the regret which ever in patriotic bosoms attends the ne- 
glect of a public duty." 

Chapter XVII 
"* * * It also showeth, for the instruction of Men and 
States, the connection between democratic opinion and wounded 



92 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

self-love; so that, if some Liberal statesman desire to rouse 
against an aristocracy the class just below it, he has only to 
persuade a fine lady to be exceedingly civil 'to that sort of 
people.' " 

Book IV 
Chapter IX 

"* * * The aboriginal Man-Eater, or Pocket Cannibal, 
is susceptible to the refining influences of Civilization. He 
decorates his lair with the skins of his victims; he adorns his 
person with the spoils of those whom he devours." 

Of the nine remaining names on the list, the real Vic- 
torians according to chronology, it happens that two-thirds 
are almost negative examples of direct satire. Reade, 
Trollope, and Kingsley take their own moralizing for the 
most part seriously, as do also the three women, Mrs. Gas- 
kell, Charlotte Bronte, and George Eliot. Such instances 
to the contrary as there are only serve in the usual capac- 
ity of exceptions. It is the remaining third, Thackeray, 
Dickens, and Meredith, who are prominent in this matter 
as in most others. 

Thackeray usually trusts to the metaphorical and al- 
lusive to secure a humorous effect. Vanity Fair is itself 
a symbolic term, elaborated upon in the Introduction and 
harped upon constantly throughout the story. The ac- 
count, for instance, of the Sedley sale is prefaced by a de- 
scription of a similar conclusion to the career of the late 
Lord Dives, the chapter beginning as follows: ^ 

"If there is any exhibition in all Vanity Fair which Satire 
and Sentiment can visit arm in arm together; where you light 
on the strangest contrasts laughable and tearful; where you may 
be gentle and pathetic, or savage and cynical with perfect pro- 

* Vanity Fair, I, 225. 



THEREALISTIC 93 

priety; it is at one of those public assemblies, a crowd of which 
are advertised every day in the last page of the 'Times' news- 
paper, and over which the late Mr. George Robins used to pre- 
side with so much dignity." 

And again: ^ 

"This is a species of dignity in which the high-bred British 
female reigns supreme. To watch the behavior of a fine lady 
to other and humbler women, is a very good sport for a phil- 
osophical frequenter of Vanity Fair." 

He delights in whimsical classic comparisons: ^ 

"Is this case a rare one? and don't we see every day in the 
world many an honest Hercules at the apron-strings of Omphale, 
and great whiskered Samsons prostrate in Delilah's lap?" 

Sometimes the classical is mingled in with the Scrip- 
tural: ^ 

"A good housewife is of necessity a humbug; and Cornelia's 
husband was hoodwinked, as Potiphar was — only in a different 

way. 

Sometimes we have a scientific simile, as the comment 
on Becky's ambition to be presented at Court. ^ 

"If she did not wish to lead a virtuous life, at least she desired 
to enjoy a character for virtue, and we know that no lady in 
the genteel world can possess this desideratum, until she has 
put on a train and feathers, and has been presented to her 
Sovereign at court. From that august interview they come out 
stamped as honest women. The Lord Chamberlain gives them 

^ Vanity Fair, I, 396. In Chapter XIX occurs the remark, " Perhaps in 
Vanity Fair there are no better satires than letters." 
2 Ibid., I, 214. 
» Ibid., I, 233. 
* Vanity Fair, II, 304. 



94 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

a certificate of virtue. And as dubious goods or letters are 
passed through an oven at quarantine, sprinkled with aromatic 
vinegar, and then pronounced clean — many a lady whose 
reputation would be doubtful otherwise and liable to give in- 
fection, passes through the wholesome ordeal of the Royal 
Presence, and issues from it free from all taint." 

In his later novels Thackeray used In greater propor- 
tion the more artistic indirect method, although he could 
more easily have plucked out his eye and cast it from 
him than to have performed the same operation on his 
habit of moralizing, which most frequently took the form 
of a semi-whimsical but wholly homiletic exhortation to 
his dear readers to make a personal application of the 
lessons involved in the story. ^ 

Of these later instances, one illustrates the use of lit- 
erary allusion, neatly combined with the commercial.^ 

"Though, no doubt, in these matters, when Lovelace is tired 
of Clarissa (or the contrary), it is best for both parties to break 
at once, * * * yet our self-love, or our pity, or our sense 
of decency, does not like that sudden bankruptcy. Before we 
announce to the world that our firm of Lovelace and Co. can't 
meet its engagements, we try to make compromises; we have 
mournful meetings of partners; we delay the putting up of the 
shutters, and the dreary announcement of the failure. It must 

1 Among countless such gems, the following is of purest ray serene: 

"Oh, be humble, my brother, in your prosperity! Be gentle with those who 
are less lucky, if not more deserving. Think, what right have you to be scornful, 
whose virtue is a deficiency of temptation, whose success may be a chance, 
whose rank may be an ancestor's accident, whose prosperity is very likely a 
satire." Vanity Fair, II, 43. 

^ Pendennis, II, 53. 

The introductory chapter of The Nezvcomes needs only to be recalled as an 
instance of the satirical fable. Nor is the beginning of Henry Esmond lacking 
in the satirical tone. 



THEREALISTIC 95 

come: but we pawn our jewels to keep things going a little 
longer." 

Dickens is included with this "didactic" trio, not so 
much because he belongs with them as because he does 
not belong with the others. He cannot be classed as a 
negative example, but his positive contributions are rel- 
atively small. His artistic superiority to Thackeray in 
this respect comes, however, not from a greater knowl- 
edge of artistry, and even less from greater care for it, 
but through the happy accident of a vivid, dramatic 
temperament. He refrains from much moralizing not, 
we are sure, because he loves moralizing less but because 
he loves people and actions more. His overwhelming 
interest in these, his affection and respect for the doings 
and sayings of his characters, is too intense to allow of 
their being interrupted by anything. He is thus some- 
thing of an artist unaware. He does not work out his 
own salvation by taking thought or by deliberating over 
ways and means; but through a fortunate preoccupation, 
an absorbing engagement with the concrete, he almost 
unconsciously dispenses with the abstract, or expresses 
it in terms of the specific. 

It is true also that he segregates a good deal of his 
reflection in his Prefaces; but it crops up too often in the 
course of the narrative to be disregarded. One of the 
first showings occurs in connection with Mr. Bumble's 
relinquishment of the beadle's costume together with that 
office, and his pensive cogitations thereupon.^ 

"There are some promotions in life, which, independent of 
the more substantial rewards they offer, acquire peculiar value 
and dignity from the coats and waistcoats connected with them. 

1 Oliver Twist, 350. The idea was possibly suggested by Sartor Resartus. 



96 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

A field-marshal has his uniform; a bishop his silk apron; a 
counsellor his silk gown; a beadle his cocked hat. Strip the 
bishop of his apron, or the beadle of his hat and lace; what are 
they? Men. Mere men. Dignity, and even holiness too, 
sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than 
some people imagine." 

In his next novel, Dickens has a word for those "who 
pamper their compassion and need high stimulants to 
rouse it," and indicates the cause of hysterical zeal on 
the one hand or dull indifference on the other, equally 
misplaced: ^ 

"In short, charity must have its romance, as the novelist or 
playwright must have his. A thief in fustian is a vulgar char- 
acter, scarcely to be thought of by persons of refinement; 
but dress him in green velvet, with a high-crowned hat, and 
change the scene of his operations, from a thickly peopled city, 
to a mountain road, and you shall find in him the very soul of 
poetry and adventure." 

The romance of the picturesque is one of our weaknesses; 
that of the mysterious is another. The latter is discussed 
with reference to the machinations of the Gordon Riot: ^ 

"To surround anything, however monstrous or ridiculous, 
with an air of mystery, is to invest it with a secret charm, and 
power of attraction which to the crowd is irresistible. False 
priests, false prophets, false doctors, false patriots, false prod- 
igies of every kind, veiling their proceeding in mystery, have 
always addressed themselves at an immense advantage to the 
popular credulity, and have been, perhaps, more indebted to 
that resource in gaining and keeping for a time the upper 
hand of Truth and Common Sense, than to any half dozen 
items in the whole catalogue of imposture." 

1 Nicholas Nickleby, I, 286. This thrust is aimed especially at Paul Clifford. 

2 Barndby Rudge, I, 296. 



THEREALISTIC 97 

Toward the legal profession the attitude of Dickens is 
never ambiguous, and ever and anon, as in the following 
instance, he expresses it with concise clarity: ^ 

"The one great principle of the English law is, to make 
business for itself. There is no other principle distinctly, cer- 
tainly, and consistently maintained through all its narrow 
turnings. Viewed by this light it becomes a coherent scheme, 
and not the monstrous maze the laity are apt to think it. Let 
them but once clearly perceive that its grand principle is to 
make business for itself at their expense, and surely they will 
cease to grumble." 

No less favored with warmth of feeling is the famous 
Circumlocution Office, to which much eloquence is de- 
voted in a chapter "containing the whole science of 
government." There are pages of satirical description, 
the keynote of which is found in an early paragraph: ^ 

"This glorious establishment had been early in the field, 
when the one sublime principle involving the difficult art of 
governing a country, was first distinctly revealed to statesmen. 
It had been foremost to study that bright revelation, and to 
carry its shining influence through the whole of the official 
proceedings. Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlo- 
cution Office was beforehand with all the public departments 
in the art of perceiving — How Not To Do It." 

It is recognized as something of an anomaly that Mere- 
dith should have begun publishing fiction along with 
George Eliot, and fifteen years before Hardy and Butler, 
for he belongs with the latter as post- Victorian in art and 
character. He represents at once the maturity of the 
nineteenth century and the embryonic promise of the 
twentieth, whose new currents were already meeting and 

1 Bleak House, 553. * Little Dorrit, I, 139. 



98 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

clashing with the old full tide. About him there could 
be nothing artless or naive, nothing unconscious or pre- 
occupied. Ripeness of judgment, deliberation in method, 
are stamped on every line, giving an effect of purpose- 
fulness without dogmatism, and profundity without owl- 
ishness. Whatever he does is done intentionally,^ and if 
some lack of spontaneity is the result, it is amply com- 
pensated for by the strength and sureness that come from 
a man's command of himself and his material. In so 
far as he is obscure, involved, compactly sententious, 
his malice is, like Browning's, aforethought. Not in igno- 
rance nor indifference does it arise, but from independent 
choice and a certain scorn of any other procedure. 

Accordingly while direct satire is not wanting in his 
novels, it is restrained in amount and sophisticated in 
nature. It does not take the shape of facile application 
of obvious conditions, nor of flamboyant portraiture, but 
of concentrated analyses of phases of life, from a sci- 
entific point of view, rather than ethical, and presented 
with calm detachment. 

Meredith is quite capable of telling pure story, as in 
Vtttoria and Harry Richmond^ but he is also capable of 
putting in some personal seasoning, particularly evinced 
in the openings of Beauchamp' s Career j and An Amazing 
Marriage, and throughout 'The Egoist. 

Of these two discursive introductions, the former is 
more amenable to quotation. It deals with the situation 
incident to a rumor of French invasion, and personifies 
Panic as a sleepy old spinster roused into brief hysteria, 
and lapsing back into comfortable stupor. ^ 

^ Cf. his description of one of his favorite characters, Nesta Radnor, — "what 
she did, she intended to do." 
^ Beauchamp' s Career, 2, 3, 4. 



THEREALISTIC 99 

"This being apprehended, by the aid of our own shortness of 
figures and the agitated images of the red-breeched only waiting 
the signal to jump and be at us, there ensued a curious exhibition 
that would be termed, in simple language, writing to the news- 
papers, for it took the outward form of letters: in reality, it was 
the deliberate saddling of our ancient nightmare of Invasion, 
putting the postillion on her, and trotting her along the high- 
road with a winding horn to rouse old Panic. * * * She 
did a little mischief by dropping on the stock-markets; in other 
respects she was harmless, and, inasmuch as she established a 
subject for conversation, useful. 

"Then, lest she should have been taken too seriously, the 
Press, which had kindled, proceeded to extinguish her with the 
formidable engines called leading articles, which fling fire or 
water, as the occasion may require. * * * 

"Then the people, rather ashamed, abused the Press for un- 
reasonably disturbing them. The Press attacked old Panic 
and stripped her naked. Panic, with a desolate scream, ar- 
raigned the Parliamentary Opposition for having inflated her 
to serve base party purposes. The Opposition challenged the 
allegations of Government, * * * and proclaimed itself 
the watch-dog of the country." 

At about this juncture the enemy himself stepped in 
and announced there never had been any need for the 
dog to bark at all: 

"So, then. Panic, or what remained of her, was put to bed 
again. The Opposition retired into its kennel growling. The 
People coughed like a man of two minds, doubting whether he 
has been divinely inspired or has cut a ridiculous figure. The 
Press interpreted the cough as a warning to Government; and 
Government launched a big ship with hurrahs, and ordered 
the recruiting-sergeant to be seen conspicuously." 

All this would seem sufficient, but it appears that the 
real sting after these preliminary pricks, is in the tail. 



lOO SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

The picture concludes with the bulky figure of the Tax- 
Payer looming in the background; he is pointed out with 
the laconic comment: ^ 

"Will you not own that the working of the system for scaring 
him and bleeding him is very ingenious? But whether the in- 
genuity comes of native sagacity, as it is averred by some, or 
whether it shows an instinct laboring to supply the deficiencies 
of stupidity, according to others, I cannot express an opinion.'* 

The satiric parentheses in The Egoist are naturally con- 
cerned not with politics but with individual men and 
women, chiefly in their relationships to one another. A 
few instances will serve. 

Referring to the selfish folly of the masculine demand 
for feminine delicacy rather than strength, Meredith says 
of women : ^ 

"Are they not of a nature warriors, like men? — men's mates 
to bear them heroes instead of puppets? But the devouring 
male Egoist prefers them as inanimate overwrought polished 
pure-metal precious vessels, fresh from the hands of the artificer, 
for him to walk away with hugging, call all his own, drink of, 
and fill and drink of, and forget that he stole them." 

Again, apropos of that "adoring female's worship," 
destined only for the strong, "who maintain the crown 

1 Beauchamp's Career, 6. 

2 The Egoist, 132. Later he indicates the corollary of this, — 

" But not many men are trained to courage; young women are trained to 
cowardice. For them to front an evil with plain speaking is to be guilty of 
effrontery and forfeit the waxen polish of purity, and therewith their command- 
ing place in the market." Ibid., 296. 

Cf. Evan Harrington, 208, for the muddled state of a young woman's mind, 
only to be penetrated by "that zigzag process of inquiry conducted by following 
her actions, for she can tell you nothing, and if she does not want to know a 
particular matter, it must be a strong beam from the central system of facts 
that shall penetrate her." 



THE REALISTIC lOI 

by holding divinely independent of the great emotion 
they have sown," he says: ^ 

"In the one hundred and fourth chapter of the thirteenth 
volume of the Book of Egoism, it is written : Possession without 
obligation to the object possessed approaches felicity" 

When we turn to plot or situation as a vehicle of satire, 
we find an almost exact parallel, as to proportionate 
amount, to the reflective type just discussed. More than 
half of the novelists on our list have no examples worthy 
of special mention. A few insert amusing episodes, not 
especially germane to the main plot. And the three 
notable instances, where the satiric situation is a feature 
of importance, where it influences the whole trend of the 
movement, afi^ects the leading characters, and plays a 
part in the climax, occur in the three real satires, Martin 
Chuzzlewitj Vanity Fair, and The Egoist; so that Dickens, 
Thackeray, and Meredith are again our main theme. 

Situation or action is of course merely the dramatization 
of character, and not to be distinguished from it except as 
actual expression is distinguished from the capacity for it. 
Individuals speak for themselves instead of being spoken 
for, although they often convey more than they mean to, 
and much that they would not. Since this form of art 
has its own medium in the drama, it is there that we 
look for the most perfect and concentrated expression, 
and expect to find it in the novel only in the latter's 
dramatic moments, which may be few and far between. 
But as the denouement of the drama usually turns on 
some phase of poetic justice, either in its tragic or its 
comic aspect, so also does this dramatic element in fiction. 
Satire in situation is therefore concerned with the comedy 

1 The Egoist, 156. 



I02 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

of poetic justice, and is successful in so far as that sense 
is appealed to and satisfied. 

In their respective stories, Pecksniff, Becky Sharp, and 
Sir Willoughby Patterne are the people of most impor- 
tance, if not the heroes; and in each case the climax of 
the career is a ludicrous anticlimax, with circumstances 
appropriate in every instance to the character. 

The unveiling of Pecksniff is a public and demonstra- 
tive affair, in accordance with the public and demonstra- 
tive nature of his previous life, and also, one may add, 
with the Dickensian theory of the fitness of humorous ret- 
ribution. In spite of the crude melodrama of the scene, 
there is fundamental truth in the most important item 
in it, the behavior of the one toward whom all eyes are 
turned in hostile contempt. He needed no loyal, anxious 
mother to beg him to "be 'umble," for his humility was 
not as the Heeps'. It was a superior article, self-pos- 
sessed and patronizing, not servile and ingratiating, and 
it was therefore impregnable. Uriah might be dis- 
comfited when his mask was publicly torn away, but 
the Pecksniffian duplicity was no mere flimsy detachable 
mask. It was the very skin of his face; indeed, it was 
more than skin deep; it was the stuff of his soul. He 
could therefore be imperturbable, though felled to the 
floor, a dignified martyr, grieved but gracious under 
calumny, unquelled by those who had assembled to do 
him dishonor. 

This impressiveness serves Pecksniff, as her wit serves 
Becky, to mitigate the absurdity which threatens him. It 
is not in this heightened moment that his comicality is 
apparent; it is in the retrospective picture we get of him 
through the revelation of Martin Chuzzlewit, whereby he 
is seen not only as the biter bit, but as the calf, the bland. 



THE REALISTIC IO3 

assured, shrewd yet unsuspecting calf, that, being given 
plenty of rope, promptly hanged himself. 

In the downfall of Becky there is less of the comic and 
more of the tragic, though Thackeray does not choose to 
invest her with enough dignity for tragedy. She is less 
absurd than Pecksniffor Sir Willoughby for several reasons. 
She is more human and has the claim of normal humanity 
on our sympathy; she is the product of circumstances, 
clearly shown to be largely responsible for her failure both 
in aspiration and achievement, whereas theirs is gratui- 
tous and without excuse; and she is herself too much of 
a jester to be patronized by the ridicule of others. She too 
can keep up appearances to the last, not by reinforcing 
her hypocrisy but by being able to dispense with it, when 
it no longer serves, and to mock at it along with every- 
thing else. The only real joke she is the victim of comes 
comparatively early, when she discovers she might be- 
come Lady Crawley were she not already daughter-in 
law of the coveted and forfeited title. 

This theme of a vaulting ambition o'erleaping itself is a 
favorite with Thackeray, and he did some good apprentice 
work on it in T^he Fatal Boots, and Yellowplush Memoirs. 
In the former the unwelcome wedding present comes 
as a delightful bit of comic nemesis. But the outcome of 
the latter, with an accomplished swindler outwitted by 
his own father, and a helpless woman ruthlessly sacrificed, 
savors too much of tragedy to be amusing. 

Sir Willoughby is only an egoist, not a hypocrite nor a 
sycophant; and being a gentleman can suffer naught but a 
gentlemanly humiliation. Such a one is not to be knocked 
down and taunted in the presence of his little world; he is 
merely made a subject of gossip and speculation: nor is he 
to be reduced to sordid material scheming; his intrigues are 



I04 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

all on the spiritual plane. A destiny that seemed kind but 
proved cruel created him the central sun to his own solar 
system. His only sin was the desire to maintain that posi- 
tion by exerting a strong but legitimate centripetal force 
upon his satellites: if any centrifugal force should become 
stronger, they must simply drop off into space. His mate 
he conceived of as the fairest star of all, gladly answering 
an imperious summons to disregard even the laws of gravi- 
tation, to surrender even the personality of a satellite, to 
rush headlong to a union that secured enlargement of the 
sun by the quenching and absorption of the star. And for 
this, his only punishment was the refusal, incredible, pre- 
sumptuous, on the part of a succession of chosen stars to 
surrender, to rush, to be absorbed. His utmost penalty 
was the decree that he must be content with the indifferent 
attendance of a weary moon whose own light had grown 
cold and who avowed an allegiance at the most, dutiful, 
quite disillusioned, and granted because of a pressure that 
amounted to compulsion. 

Externally his situation is prosperous and respectable. 
He remains an aristocrat of wealth and station, " the hu- 
mour of whom," as his own author says,^ "scarcely dim- 
ples the surface and is distinguishable but by very pene- 
trative, very wicked imps, whose fits of roaring below at 
some generally imperceptible stroke of his quality, have first 
made the mild literary angels aware of something comic 
in him," and whose figure therefore never becomes pal- 
pably absurd. Only by the " detective vision " of the imps 
is he seen poised on the pinnacle of absurdity, while the 
Pecksniffs and Becky Sharps of the world cluster around 
its base. 

The poetic justice of this comedy in narrative is per- 

1 The Egoist, 5. 



THE REALISTIC IO5 

feet because the pit the victim falls into is one of his own 
digging and the digging is of his own volition (popularly- 
speaking, without reference to the metaphysics of deter- 
minism). From the first moment of Sir Willoughby's 
philandering with Lsetitia Dale to the last unlucky turn- 
ing of the key in young Crossjay's room, all was spon- 
taneous, a long list of self-indulgences that turned into 
self-avengers. It was not essential that he should play 
upon the sentimental romanticism of his adoring fem- 
inine neighbor; nor that he should protest so emphati- 
cally to Clara that he never never could by any possi- 
bility bring himself to marry Laetitia; nor that he should 
himself provide a witness to his overcoming of that boasted 
impossibility, — and make the sacrifice for nothing after all, 
— when the absence of a witness would have saved the day 
for him. But having done all these things he had to pay 
the price, though it rendered him bankrupt in vanity, and 
for him that was bankruptcy indeed. 

Yet for all that he is food for mirth, one must yield to 
a lurking sympathy for the unhappy Patterne. A wound 
is a wound and may cause exquisite pain, even if inflicted 
only on self-love. A Pecksniff and a Becky are invulner- 
able; he is protected from pelting rain by his own oiliness, 
she by her inimitable faculty for borrowing umbrellas. 
Lsetitia was indeed finally secured as Sir Willoughby's 
umbrella, but not before he had been alarmingly threat- 
tened if not actually soaked. 

If we measured our laughter by the real feelings of its 
object instead of our conception of the frivolity or sacred- 
ness of those feelings, we should undoubtedly find it much 
diminished. We could not enjoy the predicament of Sir 
Willoughby or Sir John FalstafF or Malvolio or any of the 
notable company of the Mighty Fallen. Whereas we do 



I06 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

enjoy them with unrestrained relish on the supposition 
that their fall is not that of a Caesar or a Napoleon. Yet 
these also were egoists, and those would fain have been 
conquering heroes. Meredith testifies to this in his pre- 
liminary analysis: ^ 

"The Egoist surely inspires pity. He who would desire to 
clothe himself at everybody's expense, and is of that desire 
condemned to strip himself stark naked, he, if pathos ever had 
a form, might be taken for the actual person." 

In addition to these instances where the continual and 
final absurdity of the situation is made the motif of the 
novel, there are several cases of minor episodes, quite as 
suggestive though on a smaller scale. 

Dickens is, as might be supposed, the most fertile in 
these scenes of comic retribution. Aside from Pecksniff 
and Uriah Heep, he is most successful with the Lammles, 
Mr. Dorrit, and Silas Wegg. 

The Veneering Dinner, which introduces Our Mutual 
Friendy is only an understudy to the Veneering Break- 
fast, which celebrates the marriage of two of the Ven- 
eerings' oldest friends. 

"But, there is another time to come, and it comes in about a 
fortnight, and it comes to Mr. and Mrs. Lammle on the sands 
at Shanklin, in the Isle of Wight. 

"Mr. and Mrs. Lammle have walked for some time on the 
Shanklin sands, and one may see by their foot-prints that they 
have not walked arm-in-arm, and that they have not walked 
in a straight track, and that they have walked in a moody 
humour; for, the lady has prodded little spirting holes in the 
damp sand before her with her parasol, and the gentlernan has 
trailed his stick after him. As if he were of the Mephistopheles 
family indeed, and had walked with a drooping tail." ^ 

1 The Egoist, 5. * Our Mutual Friend, I, 166. 



THE REALISTIC I07 

It is not an angelic council that follows, though it has 
the virtues of candor, contrition, and a judicious conclu- 
sion, proposed by the Belial of the conference, to make 
the best of a bad bargain by forming a union of intrigue 
against the world in general and the diabolical Veneerings 
in particular. Thus mutual in greed, in gullibility, in 
consequent remorse, and in unholy alliance, this pair of 
frauds form the real mutuality of Dickens' Vanity Fair. 

Silas Wegg and William Dorrit stand at the two ex- 
tremes, for one is farcical and the other tragic, yet they 
meet on a common ground, the comedy of exposure. The 
farcical villain may be dismissed with the comment that 
his dramatic exit, though richly done, bears some marks 
of the childishness and vulgarity that his author could 
not always avoid. The tragic comedian, on the other 
hand, stands before us in an unconscious self-betrayal no 
less impressive and startling in its way than that of the 
sleep-walking Lady Macbeth. Nowhere in English lit- 
erature, indeed, is there a picture more awful in its sim- 
ple inevitability than the eloquent speech addressed to the 
guests at Mrs. Merdle's dinner table by the affable, pat- 
ronizing Father of the Marshalsea. 

Such ironic penalizings as these are satires of circum- 
stances, sport which beguiles the ennuied Immortals. Im- 
measurably lower in the scale is the practical joke in- 
dulged in by mortals; yet in such deeds we may reckon 
Mistresses Ford and Page, Sir Toby and Maria, as human 
deputies acting for a requiting destiny. Perhaps our best 
example of this obvious but joyous kind of satire is one 
found in almost the first novel of almost the first name on 
our list, Lytton's Pelham. It is the Parisian incident of 
the amorous M. Margot and the clever Mrs. Green, 
wherein the conceit and credulity of the former is played 



lo8 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

upon by the shrewd and merry malice of the latter, until 
he finds himself distressingly suspended in a basket from 
her lofty window late in a chilly night, to the great 
amusement of divers spectators previously invited there 
for that purpose. 

Much more subtle and hence much more intellectually 
satisfying is the trap in which another amorous gentleman, 
the Reverend Mr. Slope, is caught by another clever lady, 
Signora Neroni.^ 

"Mr. Slope was madly in love, but hardly knew it. The 
signora spitted him, as a boy does a cockchafer on a cork, that 
she might enjoy the energetic agony of his gyrations. And 
she knew very well what she was doing." 

In their memorable interview the accomplished Phoe- 
dria led this poor Cymochles into a fearful, tangled web, 
there to struggle and flounder until she released him with 
mocking scorn, having illustrated perfectly Meredith's 
remark about another and more famous egoist: ^ 

"A lover pretending too much by one foot's length of pre- 
tense, will have that foot caught in her trap." 

Even then, however, fate had not done her worst, for 
the cockchafer was literally to be slapped in the face by 
the more direct and active Eleanor Bold. The comment 
on this latter scene may be cited as an example of the mock 
heroic vein occasionally used in the service of satire from 
Swift and Fielding on.^ 

"But how shall I sing the divine wrath of Mr. Slope, or how 
invoke the tragic muse to describe the rage which swelled the 
celestial bosom of the bishop's chaplain .? Such an undertaking 

^Trollope: Barchester Towers, 299. 

t The Egoist, 4. The "her" refers to Comedy. 

' Barchester Towers, \72-'i' 



THE REALISTIC IO9 

by no means befits the low-heeled buskin of modern fiction. 
The painter put a veil over Agamemnon's face when called on 
to depict the father's grief at the early doom of his devoted 
daughter. The god, when he resolved to punish the rebellious 
winds, abstained from mouthing empty threats. We will not 
attempt to tell with what mighty surgings of the inner heart 
Mr. Slope swore to revenge himself on the woman who had 
disgraced him, nor will we vainly strive to depict his deep 
agony of soul. 

"There he is, however, alone in the garden-walk, and we must 
contrive to bring him out of ft. * * * He stood motionless, 
undecided, glaring with his eyes, thinking of the pains and 
penalties of Hades, and meditating how he might best devote his 
enemy to the infernal gods with all the passion of his accus- 
tomed eloquence. He longed in his heart to be preaching at her. 
'Twas thus that he was ordinarily avenged of sinning mortal 
men and women. Could he at once have ascended his Sunday 
rostrum and fulminated at her such denunciations as his spirit 
delighted in, his bosom would have been greatly eased." 

The routing of this clergyman is balanced by the tri- 
umph of another, in a later volume of the series, though 
in an entirely different cause. ^ None of our novelists has 
given us a more delectable scene than the one which 
marked the culmination of those triangular interviews 
with which Bishop Proudie's study was so familiar. Here 
Mrs. Proudie, that mighty Amazon, is brought low, and 
that, through a dastardly blow of fate, by a foe unworthy 
of her steel, albeit she had not considered him unworthy 
of her persecution. She is now made to endure two kinds 
of anguish, both new and both terrible. The first is being 
ignored. The second is being talked back to and then 
left before she can reply. It is a glorious moment for all 
but the defeated when one weary badgered opponent 

1 Last Chronicles of Barset. 



no SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

thunders at her, "Peace, Woman!" and adds that she 
would better be minding her distaff; and another weary- 
badgered opponent, her sleek and pampered husband, 
jumps from his chair at the sound, not in anger at the un- 
chivalrous Mr. Crawley but in admiration of his incred- 
ible courage and astounding victory. 

Of these various roads open to the writer of satirical 
intent, those just indicated, by direct reflection and by- 
dramatic scenes, are in the nature of by-ways. They are 
for the most part occasional and incidental; valuable 
chiefly as securing the piquant and diversified effect nec- 
essary to the literature that aims to amuse, even when the 
amusement itself is secondary in the real design. 

The main highway is that of character. By the kind 
of characters he can create and by his attitude toward 
them shall the novelist be known. There are the idealized, 
the respected, the beloved, the censured, the anathema- 
tized. The group selected for our especial concern in this 
study is formed of those pilloried by the rebuke humorous. 
Such, however, — the comic and therefore the ridiculed, — 
are objects of satire and accordingly more suitably con- 
sidered in the following section. It is the opposite class 
that constitutes a factor in satiric method. This phase 
of the discussion will therefore be confined to the wits, 
those who may be called satirists in their own right, and so 
used by the author as a dramatic means to his satiric end. 

Wit is the diamond of the intellectual world, precious 
on account of its rarity, its brilliancy, and the sense of in- 
finite time, matter, and compression that have gone into 
its transformation from common charcoal. Brevity is 
indeed an element of it; but its soul is perception, a 
vision at once quick and penetrating, the radio-activity 
of the mind. 



THE REALISTIC III 

Being such, it has the infrequence that marks all ex- 
cellence, both in life and its mirrored reflection. There is 
much of an unsatiric and subintellectual order, the kind 
that comes from ingenuity and cunning, and takes the 
shape of pranks and jests for the fun of them; manifest 
in Diccon, Autolycus, and the Court Fools, — though these 
last often have much meat in them. Then there is the 
clever befooling for a purpose, as seen in Portia, getting 
her own ring by a subterfuge; or Kate Hardcastle, stoop- 
ing to conquer. There is also the bitter temper which an- 
imates a Katherina, checkmated only by a Petruchio; 
this produces too a Thersites to be the cheese and diges- 
tion of Achilles; and Cleopatra, gibing at "the married 
woman." 

Wit, however, is something more than merriment or 
malice; and short is the list of its worthy examples. Ly- 
sistrata is not only a vigorous feminist but pungent on the 
theme. Pertelote and the Wife of Bath illumine masculine 
superstition and conservatism. Benedict and Beatrice 
sparkle by mutual concussion. The melancholy Jaques 
and the melancholy Dane are the finest of satiric philoso- 
phers. Subtle the Alchemist enjoys with a huge private 
relish the gullibility he exploits. Fra Lippo Lippi graces 
with gayety the professional pretense and policy he ex- 
poses. These compose a distinctive and exclusive com- 
pany, and few there are who may be added unto them. 

Within the novel the proportion is almost as small. The 
most noteworthy prototypes to Victorian fiction are Mat- 
thew Bramble and, in a girlish fashion, Evelina. (Lady 
Emily, in Susan Ferrier*s Marriage, might be included). 
But these, through the thin guise of letters, are Smollett 
and Burney as completely as Gulliver and Shandy are 
Swift and Sterne through the thinner guise of the dramatic 



112 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

monologue. More objective are Jane Austen's Mr. Ben- 
net and his daughter Elizabeth. The former particularly 
is a satiric soloist acting as Greek chorus to the follies of 
his wife, daughters, and certain young men. 

This delightful relationship between father and daugh- 
ter, a sort of satiric defensive alliance against the besieg- 
ing army of silly exactions and vexations, finds a clear if 
fainter echo in that of Dr. Gibson and Molly (in Mrs. 
Gaskell's Wives and Daughters)^ who plan in the temporary 
absence of the elegant stepmother to do "everything that 
is unrefined and ungenteel." 

The exponents of satiric wit in the Victorian novel may 
be thrown for convenience into three or four divisions. 

There is the native or rustic type, whose shrewd obser- 
vations are condensed into homely but poignant epigrams. 
That such characters have always existed is evident from 
the existence of a whole literature of proverbial philosophy, 
of anonymous origin, like ballads and fabliaux. Conspic- 
uous in the van of the few who have been lifted from this 
obscure anonymity is the redoubtable Mrs. Poyser. It 
is no valid discount to George Eliot's achievement to say 
she produced only one Mrs. Poyser. Indeed, it might 
add something to her luster to note that no other novelist 
has produced even one. 

The only other deserving of mention is a countryman in 
Lytton's What Will He Do with It^ chosen in this case also 
because he illustrates the generic class of stage-drivers, 
whose brightest light is the American Yuba Bill. This one 
is described in the chapter heading ^ as "a charioteer, to 
whom an experience of British Laws suggests an inge- 
nious mode of arresting the progress of Roman Papacy." 
He discourses to his passenger: ^ 

1 Book II, Chapter I. 2 Vol. I, 78-9. 



TH E REALISTIC II3 

"My wife's grandfather was put into Chancery just as he 
was growing up, and never grew afterwards — never got out o' 
it. Nout ever does. There's our church warden comes to me 
with a petition to sign agin the Pope. Says I, 'that old Pope 
is always in trouble — what's he bin doin' now?' Says he, 
'Spreading! He's agot into Parlyment, and now he's got a 
colledge, and we pays for it. I doesn't know how to stop him.' 
Says I, 'Put the Pope into Chancery along with wife's grand- 
father, and he'll never spread agin.'" 

The urban counterpart of this type is the child of the 
city streets, of which we have specimens in the sophisti- 
cated gamins, the Artful Dodger and Dick Swiveller. In 
this Dickens has a monopoly, such as it is. 

Coming up from the ranks, we reach the intellectual 
aristocrat, whose culture enables him to add polish to his 
satiric pith and point. It happens that the two most rep- 
resentative characters of this type are furnished by the two 
authors who stand at chronological extremes, though the 
volumes in which they occur are only three years apart. ^ 

Kenelm Chillingly is the melancholy Victorian. After 
the initial lapse into a bit of grotesque caricature in the 
account of his babyhood, — a thing that would have been 
avoided by a writer of more restrained taste, — the author 
paints his portrait with skill, distinction, and truth. His 
Coming of Age speech to the assembled tenants and guests 
on that joyful occasion is truly startling, but far from in- 
credible. The audacious youngster, with his grave, se- 
rene, matter of fact pessimism, exposes in a searching 
analysis the discrepancy between the supposed reality 
they were felicitating themselves and him upon and an 
ideal which is quite beyond their comprehension. Yet it 
is an unquestionably practical ideal, and it breaks like a 

^ Lytton's Kenelm Chillingly, 1873, and Meredith's Beauchamp's Career, 1876. 



114 SATIRE IX THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

slow, cold, somber light through the shallow sentiment 
that had been screening some disconcerting depths. 

It is true, he says, that the Chillingly s come from a re- 
mote race, but length of tenure has meant only so much 
more inanity.^ 

"They were bom to eat as long as they could eat, and when 
they could eat no longer they died. Not that in this respect 
they were a whit less insignificant than the generality of their 
fellow creatures." 

He reminds his gaping, rural audience that man merely 
represents a stage in the course of evolution. - 

"The probability is that, some day or other, we shall be ex- 
terminated b}- a new development of species." 

He goes on ruthlessly to assert that, contrary to the pop- 
ular belief, his father was not a good landlord, because 
he was too indulgent to the individual and too heedless 
of national welfare, ignoring the highest duty of the em- 
ployer, maximum production through competitive ex- 
amination. As to his own college record: ^ 

"Some of the most useless persons — especially narrow- 
minded and bigoted — have acquired far higher honours at the 
university than have fallen to my lot." 

And then, after a brilliant Schopenhauerish conclusion, he 
drinks to their very good healths. 

Thus launched, the meditative young man continues in 
a career of ironic candor, although he learns later the wis- 
dom of being candid only with oneself at times, and less 
communicative to others; as for instance when he solilo- 
quizes on a request by farmer Saunderson: * 

1 Lytton's Kenelm Chillingly, 38. 

* Ibid., 39. -\n echo from The Coming Race, published two years earlier. 
» Ibid., 40. 

* Ibid., 90. Later he imagines a hypothetical contribution to The Londoner. 



THEREALISTIC II^ 

'One can't wonder why every small man thinks it so pleasant 
to let down a big one, when a father asks a stranger to let down 
his own son for even fancying that he is not small beer. It is 
upon that principle in human nature that criticism wisely 
relinquishes its pretensions as an anahtical science, and be- 
comes a lucrative profession. It relies on the pleasure its readers 
find in letting a man down." 

Dr. Shrapnel is a sad and tragic figure, bowed by an al- 
truistic grief at the state of human affairs, yet over his 
clouded sky play some sharp lightning flashes; witness his 
vivid simile describing the Tories, thus reported: ^ 

"He compares them to geese claiming possession of the whole 
common, and hissing at ever\' foot of ground they have to 3*ield. 
They're always having to retire and always hissing. 'Retreac 
and menace,' that's the motto for them," 

There are a few characters remaining who cannot be 
omitted from this group of witty satirists, who do not 
quite belong to any of the above classes, and who do have 
a common bond, though only the artificial one ot feminin- 
ity. They must therefore be mentioned as Women; Mrs. 
Poyser being summoned for a second enrollment, and Mrs. 
Cadwallader added. It is true that their animadversions 
are largely directed against some faults in the prevailing 
system of courtship, marriage, and a masculine-managed 

bringing " that highly intellectual journal into discredit by a feeble attempt at a 
good-natured criticism or a generous sentiment." i6i. 

Kenelm grows into some likeness to his old tutor Welby, an unpedantic, 
versatile scholar, who belonged to "the school of Edectdcal Christolog>'.'* 
The Rev. John Chillingly, for instance, did not perceive Welby's realism, 
for the latter listened to idealistic eulogies without contradicting them; having 
"grown too indolent to be combative in conversation, and only as a critic 
betrayed such pugnacity as remained to him by the polished cruelty of 
sarcasm." 34. 

^ Beauchamp's Career, 167. 



Il6 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

universe, but not exclusively so, nor are they the only crit- 
ics of those subjects. 

Two others besides George Eliot have made a single 
but notable contribution to this list, Thackeray and Char- 
lotte Bronte. Rebecca Sharp is too well known to need 
more than appreciative mention. Shirley Keeldar is in- 
teresting as being what the author's "sister Emily might 
have been." She is a spicily sweet, lovable character, 
clearly presented both in action and in such touches of 
description as,^ 

" * * * ever ready to satirize her own or any other person's 
enthusiasm, she would have given a farm of her best land for a 
chance of rendering good service." 

She converses with her friend Caroline about literature: ^ 

"Milton was great; but was he good? His brain was right; 
how was his heart? * * * Milton tried to see the first 
woman; but, Cary, he saw her not. * * * It was his cook 
that he saw; or it was Mrs. Gill, * * * preparing a cold 
collation for the rectors. * * * j would beg to remind him 
that the first men of the earth were Titans, and that Eve was 
their mother." 

In a spirited speech to Uncle Sympson, who craved to 
get rid of the exasperating minx by disposing of her in res- 
pectable matrimony, she baits and badgers him until his 
feeble intellect is nearly shattered, ideas outraged, temper 
twisted beyond repair. No Victorian young niece should 
say to an elderly conventional guardian: * 

"Your god, sir, is the World. * * * Your great Bel, 
your fish-tailed Dagon. * * * gee him busied at the work 
he likes best — making marriages. He binds the young to the 

1 Shirley, II, 90. * Ibid., II, 35 1, ^ /^j^.^ n^ ^50. 



THE REALISTIC ll7 

old, the Strong to the imbecile. He stretches out the arm of 
Mezentius and fetters the dead to the living." 

The novelist most admittedly generous to women is 
Meredith, and we have him to thank for Margaret Lovell, 
Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, Diana Warwick, and Clara 
Middleton, with Mrs. Berry as a sort of compromise be- 
tween Mrs. Poyser and Mrs. Tulliver. Yet they do not 
any more than live up to their boasted reputations, as 
dainty rogues in porcelain, famous epigrammatists, the 
quoted astonishment of drawing-rooms.^ 

The real Victorian Shakespeare in the matter of women 
is Trollope. Not entirely unworthy of the sisterhood of 
Beatrice, Viola, and Portia, are Miss Dunstable, Lily Dale, 
Lucy Robarts, and Violet Effingham; Madeline Stanhope 
might be added as a village Cleopatra. 

^ It is not in a novel but the shortest of his Short Stories that Meredith has 
presented to us his truly wittiest character, shown with the brief but startling 
distinctness of a flash-light. Nowhere is there a more perfect embodiment of 
the satiric spirit than Lady Camper. It required a malicious imagination to 
produce the cartoons of the City of Wilsonople, and to use them with such 
wicked effectiveness. Yet this Limb of Satan was maleficent only to bless, 
ultimately. The fine military figure upon which she turned the shaft of illumina- 
tion is equally perfect as the incarnate satirizible; not a sinner, not a villain, 
but a complacent, fatuous, selfish gentleman, "open to exposure in his little 
whims, foibles, tricks, incompetencies," but capable of an improvement that 
amounted to regeneration. 

"Well, General," his teleological tormentor finally explains, "you were fond 
of thinking of yourself, and I thought I would assist you. I gave you plenty of 
subject-matter. I will not say I meant to work a homoeopathic cure." 

She further admonishes him that the triumph is his rather than hers, if he 
cares to make the most of it. "Your fault has been to quit active service. 
General, and love your ease too well * * * You are ten times the 
man in exercise. Why, do you mean to tell me that you would have 
cared for those drawings of mine when marching.''" Idleness, moreover, is a 
first aid to vanity. "You would not have cared one bit for a caricature," Lady 
Camper continues, "if you had not nursed the absurd idea of being one of our 
conquerors." His final salvation, she concludes, was his sensitiveness to rid- 
icule. 



Il8 SATIRE IN THE \'ICTORIAN NOVEL 

Lily Dale is plaintively sympathetic on the subject of 
the sorrows of men through the vexations of their amuse- 
ments: ^ 

"Women must amuse themselves, except for an annual treat or 
two. But the catering for men's sport is never ending, and is 
always paramount to ever>^thing else. And yet the pet game of 
the day never goes off properly. In partridge time, the par- 
tridges are wild and won't come to be killed. In hunting time, 
the foxes won't run straight, — the wretches. They show no 
spirit, and will take to ground to save their brushes. Then comes 
a nipping frost, and skating is proclaimed; but the ice is always 
rough, and the woodcocks have deserted the country. And 
as for salmon, — when the summer comes round I do really 
believe that they suffer a great deal about the salmon. I am 
sure they never catch any. So they go back to their clubs and 
their cards, and abuse their cooks and blackball their friends." 

As to the adorable, captivating kind, she is not too san- 
guine: ^ 

"The Apollos of the world * * * who are so full of 
feeling, so soft-natured, so kind, who never say a cross word, 
who never get out of bed on the wrong side in the morning, — it 
so often turns out that they won't wash." 

Of Lucy Robarts Trollope himself speaks with justifi- 
able pride, and says he does not see "how any character 
could be more natural than she." She is indeed a sunny, 
breezy, English maid, endowed with charm, enterprise, 
and a resourcefulness that could outwit with dignity the 
titled dowager who did not want to be her mother-in-law. 
But her chief distinction, in which she is more unusual than 
"natural," is the possession of that kind of humor defined 
by Howells as " the cry of pain of a well-bred man." WTien 
her pride is wounded, her love baffled, her happiness ap- 

^ Last Chronicles oj Barset, 97. * Ibid., 175. 



THE REALISTIC II9 

parently shipwrecked, her course of action made most 
difficult, she is able to say to her sister: ^ 

"Fanny, you have no idea what an absolute fool I am, what 
an unutterable ass. The soft words of which I tell you were of 
the kind which he speaks to you when he asks you how the cow 
gets on which he sent you from Ireland, or to Mark about 
Ponto's shoulder. * * * 

"He is no hero. There is nothing on earth wonderful about 
him. I never heard him say a single word of wisdom, or utter 
a thought that was akin to poetry. He devotes all his energies 
to riding after a fox or killing poor birds, and I never heard of 
his doing a single great action in my life. And yet * * *" 

In tears and breathless excitement she admits the 
strength and reality of her love, and continues with the 
diagnosis : 

"I'll tell you what he has: he has fine straight legs, and a 
smooth forehead, and a good-humoured eye, and white teeth. 
Was it possible to see such a catalogue of perfections, and not 
fall down, stricken to the very bone ? But it was not that that 
did it all, Fanny. I could have stood against that, I think I 
could, at least. It was his title that killed me. I had never 
spoken to a lord before." 

But she is also obliged to acknowledge that she has done 
some injustice to her own romance and to the sincerity of 
Lord Lufton: ^ 

"Well, it was not a dream. Here, standing here, on this very 
spot — on that flower of the carpet — he begged me a dozen 
times to be his wife. I wonder whether you and Mark would 
let me cut it out and keep it." 

No solution to her matrimonial problem being offered, 
she suggests one: ' 

1 Framley Parsonage, 259. * Framley Parsonage, 264. * Ibid., 266. 



120 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

'"And what shall I do next?' said Lucy, still speaking in a 
tone that was half tragic and half jeering. 

"'Do?' said Mrs. Robarts. 

"'Yes, something must be done. If I were a man I could 
go to Switzerland, of course; or, as the case is a bad one, perhaps 
as far as Hungary. What is it that girls do? they don't die 
now-a-days, I believe. * * * j have got a piece of sack- 
cloth, and I mean to wear that, when I have made it up.'" 

We are relieved to hear later that no such drastic action 
was necessary, as she became Lady Lufton and was able 
to be happy without overworking her sense of humor. 

These instances may serve to indicate the general 
method and effect of so-called realism applied to satiric in- 
tent, so long as allowance is made for the unreal and dis- 
torted nature of all incomplete and isolated cases, butch- 
ered to make an analytic holiday. 



CHAPTER III 

THE IRONIC 

The science of Esthetics is a tribute to our zeal in at- 
tempting to define the indefinable word beauty. Nearly 
as elusive of categoric bondage is irony; but for its capture 
no formal scientific crusade has as yet been organized. It 
is, however, whether in spite of its vagueness or because 
of it, a term of great and increasing popularity. No 
phrase is at present more of a general favorite than "The 
Irony of Fate," no exclamation more frequent than "How 
ironic!" In this expressive and impressive utterance there 
is as much individual variation of meaning as in "How 
beautiful!" And it coexists with as much possibihty of a 
standardized conception. What the latter may be, it is the 
business of the student of the subject to try to determine. 

The etymology and early usage of the word are familiar 
enough. Generically, to the ancient Greeks, irony meant 
dissimulation in speech; specifically, that form of dissim- 
ulation used by Socrates for the confusion of his dialectic 
opponent, consisting on the part of the wise man of an as- 
sumption of ignorance which longed for enlightenment. 
On this bated hook were caught the unwary who pretended 
to wisdom the while they had it not, lured by flattering 
inquiry to a fatal communicativeness. 

In its present status the term has two fairly distinct 
divisions, characterized by Bishop Thirwall, in his essay 
on the Irony of Sophocles, as the verbal and the practical. 
The former is the rhetorical device whereby a certain idea 

121 



122 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

or circumstance is implied by its statement in terms to the 
contrary or to the opposite effect. The latter is the con- 
trast between the real and apparent state of things, or be- 
tween the expected and the eventual, commonly described 
as the Irony of Fate. A third form, the kind known as 
dramatic irony, might be mentioned, though it is really a 
subdivision of cosmic irony. ^ For the actor makes his 
blunders and gets into his predicaments through igno- 
rance; and this discrepancy between his notion of things 
and their actuality adds zest to the enjoyment of the spec- 
tator, who is in the secret. So the great unseen Spectator 
is conceived to observe the stage of the world, and derive 
the amusement of superior knowledge from that 

"Which, for the Pastime of Eternity, 
He doth himself contrive, enact, behold." 

Among these varieties, and between all of them and the 
original meaning, there must be enough common ground 
to account for the persistence of the terminology through 
the centuries, allowing for the divergence natural to a slow 
and half conscious evolution. This common ground of 
denotation is of course dissimulation, whether in the re- 
stricted field of knowledge, or the complete reversal of 
statement and intention, or the specious show of things 
whereby we are deluded into an erroneous supposition or 
a false sense of security. But this simple matter of decep- 
tion is enveloped in an atmosphere of connotation that is 
charged with complication and subtlety. 

The ironic habit of speech is a sign of a mind imaginative 
and averse to the obvious. Its indulgence indicates a love 

^ On dramatic irony, see American Philological Association Transactions, 1917, 
for summary of an interesting unpublished paper read before the Society by 
Dr. J. S. P. Tatlock. 



THEIRONIC 1 23 

of concealment, from aesthetic motives, and a corresponding 
abhorrence of flat, naive exposure. The ironist has taken 
the veil of covertness to protect himself from the garish 
overt day.^ Its reception, on the other hand, is an equally 
sure indicator of disposition. For it is beloved of its own 
kin, deep answering unto deep, and distrusted by the 
alien with a repulsion as strong as that of the subtle for 
the simple. To understand or not to understand the ironic 
is an acid test of the literal mind. An apposite reference 
to this fact is found in a comment on one of our novelists.^ 

"Some simple-minded people are revolted, even in literature, 
by the ironical method; and tejl the humourist, with an air of 
moral disapproval, that they never know whether he is in jest 
or in earnest. To such matter-of-fact persons Mr. Disraeli's 
novels must be a standing offense, for it is his most characteristic 
peculiarity that the passage from one phase to the other is im- 
perceptible." 

Another reason for the prejudice against ironic language 
may be that it is popularly supposed to emanate from a 

* As advised by John Brown in his Essay on Satire: 

"The Muse's charms resistless then assail, 
When wrapt in irony's transparent veil; 
* * * * * 

Then be your lines with sharp encomiums grac'd; 
Style Clodius honorable, Busa chaste." 

And not long before this, Dryden had been saying: "How easy it is to call 
rogue and villain, and that wittily! But how hard to make a man appear a fool, 
a blockhead, or a knave, without using any of these opprobrious terms! * * • 
Neither is it true that this fineness of raillery is offensive. A witty man is 
tickled while he is hurt in this manner, and a fool feels it not." Essay on Satire, 

98. 

* Stephen: Hours in a Library, Second Series. 347. 

Another critic of another novelist makes the point by a vivid illustration: 
"A rabbit fondling its own harmless face affords no matter of amusement 
to another rabbit, and Miss Austen has had many readers who have perused 
her works without a smile." Raleigh: The English Novel, 253. 



124 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

caustic soul, with leanings toward cynicism; an error due 
to a narrow identification of irony with its extreme right 
wing, — sarcasm, which is indeed, as its etymology would 
signify, a flesh-tearing, or at least heart-rending, perform- 
ance, belonging, as Bishop Hall would say, to the toothed 
division of satire. 

But on the extreme left sits banter, entirely amiable 
and even affectionate. "You scamp, you rascal, you 
young villain!" is a favorite way of expressing parental 
pride and tenderness. Reticent youth apostrophizes his 
cherished friend as an "old fraud." "Philosophic irony," 
says Anatole France, "is indulgent and gentle." ^ And 
Symonds ^ describes Ariosto as watching " the doings of 
humanity with a genial half smile, an all pervasive irony 
that had no sting in it." Ranging thus from the playful 
to the ferocious, irony is at its best when not too near either 
margin, having in itself more point than banter and more 
polish than sarcasm. "They are all," says another critic,' 
"with others of the family, in the regular service of Satire." 

The metaphor of service may be allowed, in that satire, 
being the largest and most general type, includes the others. 
The relationship may be stated more literally by saying 
that irony is the form of humorous criticism which is ex- 
pressed through innuendo, partly because of preference 
for verbal inversion, and partly in recognition of the topsy- 
turvydom of life. All irony is therefore satirical, though 
not all satire is ironical. The ironist conveys his own 
point of view by stating another's, condemning by appear- 
ing to approve, or vice versa. Boisterousness and didac- 
ticism are foreign to irony and not to be feared so long as 
it is dominant. Perfection in its employment indicates 

1 Life and Letters, I, 207. * The Renaissance in Italy, V, 8. 

' Irony, Living Age, 259: 250. 



THE IRONIC 125 

that complete self-control which is supposed to be a pa- 
trician trait. 

This does not mean, however, that ironic usage or atti- 
tude has been confined to the upper social stratum as its 
special prerogative. Nietzsche may indeed exclaim, "We 
should look upon the needs of the masses with ironic com- 
passion: they want something which we have got — Ah! ** 
But these compassionated masses have themselves been 
capable of the retort ironic, and have had also their spokes- 
men, from Lucian to Galsworthy. In T^he Cock, Lucian 
gives an ironic enumeration of the dangers and troubles 
of the rich and powerful, and displays the advantage of 
being poor and obscure. In 'The Ferry ^ Mycellus, the cob- 
bler, voices an ironic lament on leaving life, and parodies 
the regrets of the wealthy: ^ 

"Oh, dear, dear! My shoe-soles! Oh! My old boots! Oh! 
What will become of my rotten sandals ? Alas, poor wretch that 
I am, I shall no longer go without food from early morning until 
evening, nor in winter time walk barefoot and half naked, my 
teeth chattering from the cold. Ah, me! Who, forsooth, is 
going to have my shoemaker's knife and my awl?'* 

As manner of speech is but a reflection of manner of 
thought, it is evident that the ironist is not sufficiently 
accounted for as a devotee of a certain verbal device. This, 
on the contrary, is only an external manifestation of some- 
thing more subjective and permanent, — a mood or an atti- 
tude which may enlarge into a definite interpretation of 
life. Of this interpretation the keynote is that Fate is iron- 
ical. In its unmitigated form this philosophy declares that 
there is a deviltry that misshapes our ends, construct them 
how we will. It is more often found, however, in a modi- 

^ A Second Century Satirist, 187. A translation by W. D. Sheldon. 



126 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

fied creed which admits that the presence of this perverse 
element in existence does not prove that all life is of the 
same piece; that the mad pranks are those of destiny's 
underlings, dressed in a little brief authority, and not per- 
petrated by the ruler of the universe. 

Such speculations lead into the realm of religion, and re- 
ligion has had to provide a place in its pantheon for this 
spirit of disastrous caprice. There it lurks under various 
guises. Baal may fall asleep or go on a journey at a time 
most inauspicious for his followers. The behavior of the 
Olympians quite justifies the debate between Timocles 
and Damis, reported by Lucian, as to the theocratic mis- 
management of the world. Setebos slays and saves with 
an eye single to the bewilderment of the human puppets. 
The presiding goddess in The House of Fame rewards and 
punishes with a similar unaccountability. "The gods," 
says Smollett ^ "not yet tired with sporting with the farce 
of human government, were still resolved to show by what 
inconsiderable springs a mighty empire may be moved." 
Sport is a need also of the President of the Immortals, and 
where so agreeably found as in undermining the patient 
structure of poor little Tess, and bringing it to the ground 
with a splendid crash? 

The essence of an ironic circumstance lies In its appar- 
ently wanton thwarting by a narrow margin of a normal 
sequence in itself logical and desirable, or in an imposition 
of calamity on the same exasperating terms. Either it 
frustrates not merely what might have been but what al- 
most was, or It brings to pass the disaster that was almost 
averted. It might come under the simpler caption of bad 
luck, except that not all bad luck Is ironic; only a partic- 
ular brand of it. Irony is the obverse side of that happy 

^ Adventures of an Atom, II, 121. 



THE IRONIC 127 

concatenation of events which we approvingly designate 
as Providential. The favoring and therefore the rational 
and commendable happening is an act of special provi- 
dence. The contrary comes from the malicious mischief 
of the Aristophanes of Heaven. 

In literature the ironic temper has acquitted itself with 
distinguished success. Among its contributions one re- 
calls The Dinner of Trimalchio, The Golden Ass (and the 
medieval Burnellus), Letters of Obscure Men, Praise of 
Folly, Gargantua, Don Quixote, The Gull's Hornbook, 
Knight of the Burning Pestle, A Modest Proposal, The 
Shortest Way with Dissenters, Candide, Jonathan Wild, 
Murder as a Fine Art, Castle Rackrent, Northanger Abbey, 
The Fair Haven. A glance at the list shows the versatile 
nature of irony both as to form and idea, though its his- 
tory taken as a whole has shown more predilection 
for the romantic than for the realistic method. It is an 
ingredient in all burlesque and caricature, and is on the 
other hand least necessary to an explicit presentation of 
reality, however full this last may be of implicit irony. Its 
consistent practice is to deceive, and this can more easily 
be accomplished through fantasy and symbolism. When, 
however, it is accomplished by more demure and dis- 
arming means, the deception is more thorough just be- 
cause of taking the reader unaware. One is on guard 
against any form of the symbolic, knowing that some sus- 
picious thing is therein concealed. But who would think 
of questioning a collection of letters, an essay or a treatise? 
Yet these are the culprits guilty of ruthlessly hoodwinking 
the trusting literal mind. 

Ulrich von Hutten's Epistola were edited by Maittaire, 
and the edition reviewed by Steele (whom we should not 
expect to be caught napping), both taking them seriously. 



128 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

Defoe's pilloried renown is well known. Butler's work 
"in Defense of the Miraculous Element in Our Lord's 
Ministry upon Earth," was solemnly greeted by the review- 
ers as a champion of orthodoxy, and sent by Canon 
Ainger to a friend he wished to convert. Swift and De 
Quincey have been condemned for abuse of children and 
encouragement of crime. 

Misunderstanding of this sort is a triumph for irony, 
a test of success. But there are also signs of a misappre- 
hension of the ironic disposition, especially as related to 
the satiric. Of this conception two modern critics afford 
examples. In the Introduction to his Dejoe^ Masefield 
remarks, — 

"An ironical writer has always nobility of soul; a satirist has 
seldom any quality save greater baseness than his subject. 
An ironical writer knows the good; a satirist need only know 
the evil." 

The superb eulogy of the first statement may be dismissed 
as a bit of rhetoric, but the doom pronounced in its corol- 
lary, is based on a double confusion; first between the 
ironist and the humorist, and second between the satirist 
and the misanthrope. In a recent discussion the same 
fallacy is promulgated at greater length: ^ 

"The satirist is the aggressive lawyer, fastening upon par- 
ticular people and particular qualities. But irony is no more 
personal than the sun that sends his flaming darts into the world. 
The satirist is a purely practical man, with a business instinct, 
bent on the main chance and the definite object. He is often 
brutal, and always overbearing; the ironist, never. Irony may 
wound from the very fineness and delicacy of the attack, but 
the wounding is incidental. The sole purpose of the satirist 
and the burlesquer is to wound; and they test their success by 
^ Randolph Bourne: The Life of Irony. Atlantic, III, 357. 



THE IRONIC 129 

the deepness of the wound. But irony tests its own by the 
amount of generous light and air it has set flowing through an 
idea or a personality, and the broad significance it has revealed 
in neglected things." 

The only pertinent reply to such eloquence Is one that 
may seem impertinent, namely, to refer the special pleader 
to a useful principle in argument greatly favored by a cer- 
tain canny Greek dialectician, and quaintly restated in 
the eighteenth century: ^ 

"If once it was expected by the Public that Authors should 
strictly define their Subjects, it would instantly cheque an 
Innundation of Scribbling. The desultory Manner of Writing 
would be absolutely exploded; and Accuracy and Precision 
would be necessarily introduced upon every Subject. * * * 
If Definitions had been constantly expected from Authors 
there would not have appeared one hundredth Part of the 
present Books, and yet every Subject had been better ascer- 
tained." 

Irony, it is true, is defined by the essayist as " the science 
of comparative experience," but this attempt to fit a phil- 
osophic giant to the bed of his smaller ironic brother meets 
with the usual Procrustian result. As for the tribute to 
irony, a far more impressive one is paid in the almost cas- 
ual utterance of Lamb, who makes it the climax of his 
enumeration of the blessings vouchsafed to mortality, — 
"and irony itself — do these things go out with life?'* 

In Victorian fiction the presence of this element is found 
very much as it is in life, unobstrusive but easily detect- 
able. What Saintsbury says of Jane Austen would apply 
in varying degrees to her successors: ^ 

^ Corbyn Morris, in An Essay towards fixing the True Standards of Wit, 
Humour, Raillery, Satire, and Ridicule. 
2 The English Novel, 195. 



130 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

"Precisely to what extent the attractive quality of this art 
is enhanced by the pervading irony of the treatment would be 
a very difficult problem to work out. It is scarcely hazardous 
to say that irony is the very salt of the novel; and that just as 
you put salt even in a cake, so it is not wise to neglect it wholly 
even in a romance. Life itself, as soon as it gets beyond mere 
vegetation, is notoriously full of irony; and no imitation of it 
which dispenses with the seasoning can be worth much." 

This vital importance of what might be called negative 
value is suggested by the juvenile's definition of salt as 
"what makes your potato taste bad if there isn't any on 
it." It is just this fact, however, that allows the ironic to 
defy analysis. By itself one spoonful of salt is very much 
like another. The whole secret is in the combination. 
Its presence or absence gives one the immediate feeling of 
the little more and how much it is, the little less and how 
far away. But to segregate it for scrutiny is to destroy 
the charm of the savor. 

Since such segregation must nevertheless be attempted 
for the sake of the information it may yield, it seems ad- 
visable to keep to the division already noted, and distin- 
guish between verbal and philosophical irony as they ex- 
ist in the novel. These correspond in a general way to the 
direct and the dramatic methods used in the larger field 
of satire. 

Of ironic language we find practically none in Reade, 
very little in Kingsley, Mrs. Gaskell, and Charlotte 
Bronte, more frequent flashes in Lytton and Disraeli, in- 
creasing still more in Dickens and Trollope. In Peacock, 
Thackeray, Eliot, Meredith, and Butler, it is more perva- 
sive, even when less in quantity, and representative of a 
consistent attitude. 

As Mrs. Kirkpatrick-Gibson is Mrs. Gaskell's favorite 



THE IRONIC 131 

game, she constantly exposes her to ironic self-betrayal, 
and finally allows her disciplined husband the luxury of 
an ironic retort, — not in the lady's presence, of course, but 
by way of reply to his daughter Molly's anticipation of an 
orgy of freedom in her absence.^ 

"The doctor's eyes twinkled, but the rest of his face was 
perfectly grave. 'I'm not going to be corrupted. With toil 
and labour I've reached a very fair height of refinement. I 
won't be pulled down again.'" 

Kingsley and Bronte are both incapable of this quiet 
banter, and can produce from their earnest souls only an 
awkward and angry sarcasm. 

The Misses Sympson and the Misses Nunnely are asking 
whether Shirley's expressive manner of singing can be 
proper. ^ 

"Was it proper? * * * Decidedly not: it was strange, it 
was unusual. What was strange must be wrong; what was un- 
usual must be improper. Shirley was judged." 

Alton Locke says of his own aspiration,^ 

"No doubt it was very self-willed and ambitious of me to 
do that which rich men's sons are flogged for not doing, and re- 
warded with all manner of prizes, scholarships, fellowships, for 
omg. 

But in the midst of his bitterness he stops to remark, 

"I really do not mean to be flippant or sneering. I have seen 
the evil of it as much as any man, in myself and in my own 
class." 

The description in Yeast of the fight between the 
squire's retainers and the London poachers, which results 

1 Wives and Daughters, 397. ^ Shirley, I, 236. ' Alton Locke, 58. 



132 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

in the death of faithful old Harry Verney, concludes with 
this comment, — characteristic in that it breathes the 
spirit of irony but lacks its complete form.^ 

"And all the while the broad still moon stared down on them 
grim and cold, as if with a saturnine sneer at the whole humbug; 
and the silly birds about whom all this butchery went on, slept 
quietly over their heads, every one with his head under his 
wing. Oh! if the pheasants had but understanding, how they 
would split their sides with chuckling and crowing at the follies 
which civilized Christian men perpetrate for their precious 
sake!" 

That Lytton should gain in poise and subtlety in the 
forty-five years intervening between Pelham and Kenelm 
Chillingly is to be expected, although the progression is by 
no means a steady one. Some of his most absurd sarcastic 
moralizing is found in My Novel, about midway in time, — 
particularly on the March of Enlightenment, with a 
smart sketch of half a dozen typical Marchers; and on lib- 
eral notions generally. And in the youthful volume are 
some very good touches, as this concerning his country 
uncle: ^ 

"He was, as people justly observed, rather an odd man: 
built schools for peasants, forgave poachers, and diminished 
his farmers' rents; indeed, on account of these and similar 
eccentricities, he was thought a fool by some, and a madman by 
others." 

This pales perceptibly, however, by the side of Peacock's 
firm and vivid treatment of the same subject, embodied in 
Squire Crochet: ' 

"He could not become, like a true-bom English squire, part 
and parcel of the barley-giving earth; he could not find in 

1 Yeast, 158. 2 Pelham, 9. « Crochet Castle, 21. 



THE IRONIC 133 

game-bagging, poacher-shooting, trespasser-pounding, footpath- 
stopping, common-enclosing, rack-renting, and all the other 
liberal pursuits and pastimes which make a country gentleman 
an ornament to the world, and a blessing to the poor; he could 
not find in these valuable and amiable occupations, and in a 
corresponding range of ideas, nearly commensurate with that 
of the great king Nebuchadnezzer, when he was turned out to 
grass; he could not find in this great variety of useful action, 
and vast field of comprehensive thought, modes of filling up 
his time that accorded with his Caledonian instinct." 

This in turn is quite equaled by Kenelm's coming-of-age 
speech, though his indictment of the genus squire is 
couched in unironical satire. Not that the youth was un- 
acquainted with the uses of irony. At the age of nine he 
had had occasion to send a letter to a schoolmate, convey- 
ing his conviction of that lad's lack of intelligence. He had 
heard his father remark that a certain neighbor was an ass, 
and that he was going to write and tell him so. He made 
inquiries into the matter of phrasing such information. He 
received the following reply, — by which he profited most 
eflPectively in his own correspondence: ^ 

"But you can not learn too early this fact, that irony is to 
the high-bred what billingsgate is to the vulgar; and when one 
gentleman thinks another gentleman is an ass, he does not say 
it point-blank — he implies it in the politest terms he can invent." 

This principle is applied on a national scale in the dis- 
course of the intruder among the Vrilya, whose situation 
resembles that of Gulliver eulogizing to the king of the 
Brobdingnagians the Institutions of England, except that 
Lytton does not blunt his irony by relapsing into plain 
terms, as Swift does in the "pernicious race of little odious 
vermin." The visitor waxes eloquent about America: ^ 

1 Kenelm Chillingly, 25. ' Coming Race, 43. 



134 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

"Naturally desiring to represent in the most favorable colors 
the world from which I came, I touched but slightly, though 
indulgently, on the antiquated and decaying institutions of 
Europe, in order to expatiate on the present grandeur and pros- 
pective pre-eminence of that glorious American Republic, in 
which Europe enviously sees its model and tremblingly foresees 
its doom. Selecting for an example of the social life of the 
United States that city in which progress advances at the fastest 
rate, I indulged in an animated description of the moral habits 
of New York. Mortified to see, by the faces of my listeners, 
that I did not make the favorable impression I had anticipated, 
I elevated my theme; dwelling on the excellence of democratic 
institutions, their promotion of tranquil happiness by the 
government of party, and the mode in which they diffused 
such happiness throughout the community by preferring, for 
the exercise of power and the acquisition of honors, the lowest 
citizens in point of property, education, and character." 

This is the ironic version of Matthew Arnold's polished 
dubiety about majorities in Numbers; and of the robustious 
satire of Dickens. If we feel that Lytton excels the latter 
in pithy conciseness and allusive point, we have to remem- 
ber that he was at this time more than twice the age of 
Dickens when Martin Chuzzlewit was written, and that in 
the intervening quarter century some improving changes 
had taken place in their common object of satire. 

Disraeli's irony is less tangible and quotable. His fa- 
vorite method is to hint at the implication in a bur- 
lesque comparison; as in the opening sentence of The 
Young Duke: ^ 

^ As an introduction this reminds one of the ironic terseness of Jane Austen: 
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a 
good fortune must be in want of a wife." {Pride and Prejudice.) And — "About 
thirty years ago, Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand 
pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield 
Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of 



THE IRONIC 135 

"George Augustus Frederick, Duke of Saint James, completed 
his twenty-first year, an event which created almost as great 
a sensation among the aristocracy of England as the Norman 
Conquest." 

Later his toilette is described in terms of a campaign, 
concluding,^ 

"He assumes the look, the air that befit the occasion: cordial, 
but dignified; sublime, but sweet. He descends like a deity from 
Olympus to a banquet of illustrious mortals." 

bartered is introduced by an epic of the chefs. Prevost 
is discoursing to Leander (who will take no engagements 
but with crowned heads), of their profession and of Adrien, 
a neophyte: ^ 

"'It is something to have served under Napoleon,* added 
Prevost, with the grand air of the Imperial kitchen. 'Had it 
not been for Waterloo, I should have had the cross. But the 
Bourbons and the cooks of the Empire never could understand 
each other. * * * 

"'He is too young. I took him to Hellingsley, and he lost his 
head on the third day. I entrusted the souffles to him, and, but 
for the most desperate personal exertions all would have been 
lost. It was an affair of the bridge of Areola. * * * Ah! 
mon Dieu! those are moments!'" 

Later the same functionary is scandalized at the diners* 
neglect of his colleague (shown in the failure to present 
him with tokens of esteem) when he had surpassed himself 
in a superb dinner: ^ 

a baronet's lady, with all the comforts and consequences of a handsome house 
and large income." {Mansfield Park.) 

^ The Young Duke, 85. Cf. a similar account of Tom Towers, of The Jupiter, 
in Trollope's Warden. 

2 Tancred, 37. 

^ Ibid., 37. 



136 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

"How can he compose when he is not appreciated? Had he 
been appreciated he would today not only have repeated the 
escalopes a la Bellamont, but perhaps even invented what might 
have outdone it. * * * These things in themselves are 
nothing; but they prove to a man of genius that he is understood. 
Had Leander been in the Imperial kitchen, or even with the 
emperor of Russia, he would have been decorated!" 

It transpires, however, that the artist's wounded feelings 
were soothed by a belated acknowledgment, accompan- 
ied by a tactful hint that he suffered in a good cause, and 
that as an esthetic missionary he should be lenient to the 
social delinquencies of the barbarians he ministered unto: * 

"Was it nothing, by this development of taste, to assist in 
supporting that aristocratic influence which he wished to cherish, 
and which can alone encourage art?" 

It is not to be supposed that this indicates the range of 
Disraeli's ideas, merely the subject on which he chiefly 
expends his ironic persiflage. A representative example 
of his more serious sarcasm is found in the second vol- 
ume of his Young England Trilogy, the one most alive 
with social sympathy: ^ 

"Infanticide is practised as extensively and as legally in 
England as it is on the banks of the Ganges; a circumstance 
which apparently has not yet engaged the attention of the 
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts." 

In Dickens and Trollope irony is a substantial though 
not exactly an integral element; more substantial in the 
former than the latter. We find ironic comment both 
direct, by the writer, and indirect, through ironic charac- 
ters; and the still more indirect, in the betraying speech 

1 Tancred, 39. ^ Sybil, 113. 



THE IRONIC 137 

that relates facts true in a different sense from that meant 
by the speaker, thus conveying a reverse effect from the 
one intended. 

A text for the first kind is furnished by Noah Claypole, 
the sordid bully and snob, prompt to retaliate on one still 
lower in the scale of circumstance than himself: ^ 

"This affords charming food for contemplation. It shows us 
what a charming thing human nature may be made to be; 
and how impartially the same amiable qualities are developed 
in the finest lord and the dirtiest charity-boy." 

Another is the Chuzzlewit Family, introduced by a long 
prologue of ironic symbolism. Specifically there is the 
eulogy of the head of the present branch of it: ^ 

"Some people likened him to a direction post, which is always 
telling the way to a place, and never goes there: but these were 
his enemies; the shadows cast by his brightness; that was all." 

Later in his illustrious career, he is upheld in his holy 
horror at the mercenary diplomacy of a landlady. Mr. 
Pecksniff rebukes, — 

"Oh, Baal, Baal! Oh my friend, Mrs. Todgers! To barter 
away that precious jewel, self-esteem, and cringe to any mortal 
creature — for eighteen shillings a week!" 

And Dickens echoes,' 

"Eighteen shillings a week! Just, most just, they censure, 
upright Pecksniff! Had it been for the sake of a ribbon, star, 
or garter; sleeves of lawn, a great man's smile, a seat in parlia- 
ment, a tap upon the shoulder from a courtly sword; a place, 
a party, or a thriving lie, or eighteen thousand pounds, or even 
eighteen hundred, — but to worship the golden calf for eighteen 
shillings a week! Oh pitiful, pitiful!" 

* Oliver Twist, \z. ^ Martin Chuzzlewit, I, 17. ^ Ibid., I, 234. 



138 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

Two more characteristic instances may be cited. The 
first is concerning the failure of the firm of Dombey and 
Son. 1 

"The world was very busy now, forsooth, and had a deal to 
say. It was an innocently credulous and a much ill-used world. 
It was a world in which there was no other sort of bankruptcy 
whatever. There were no conspicuous people in it, trading 
far and wide on rotten banks of religion, patriotism, virtue, 
honor. There was no amount worth mentioning of mere paper 
in circulation, on which anybody lived pretty handsomely, 
promising to pay great sums of goodness with no effects. There 
were no shortcomings anywhere, in anything but money. The 
world was very angry indeed; and the people especially who, 
in a worse world, might have been supposed to be bankrupt 
traders themselves in shows and pretenses, were observed to be 
mightily indignant." 

The second is anent the Whelp, Tom Gradgrind.^ 

"It was very remarkable that a young gentleman who had 
been brought up under the continuous system of unnatural 
restraint, should be a hypocrite; but it was certainly the case 
with Tom. It was very strange that a young gentleman who 
had never been left to his own guidance for five consecutive 
minutes, should be incapable at last of governing himself; but 
so it was with Tom. It was altogether unaccountable that a 
young gentleman whose imagination had been strangled in his 
cradle, should be still inconvenienced by its ghost in the form 
of grovelling sensualities; but such a monster, beyond all doubt, 
was Tom." 

In character we have a range from the vulgar, vigorous 
sarcasm of Mr. Panks ^ to the languid patrician banter of 

1 Dombey and Son, II, 416. Cf. the Musical Banks of Erewhon. 
^ Hard Times, 156. 

' Arthur Clennam had remarked that the patriarchal Mr. Casby is a fine 
old fellow. Mr. Panks snorts a bitter concurrence of opinion: 



THE IRONIC 139 

Sir John Chester, exercised on the uncomprehending Sim 
Tappertit and Gabriel Varden. There are also ironic 
touches in the two heroes, Martin Chuzzlewit and David 
Copperfield. 

The most delightful pictures of those who entertain 
irony unaware are Mr. Bumble, Mr. Squeers, Mr. Turvey- 
drop, Mrs. Skewton, Mrs. Nickleby, and Mrs. Pardiggle. 

Entrenched in wisdom, these philosophers all enunciate 
profound truths about life. 

The beadle discovers the illimitable vistas of human de- 
sires, together with the unreasonable expectation of having 
them gratified. He laments the ingratitude of the pau- 
per who, in antiparochial weather, having been granted 
bread and cheese, has the audacity to ask for a bit of fuel.^ 

"That's the way with these people, ma'am; give 'em a apron 
full of coals today, and they'll come back for another, the day 
after tomorrow, as brazen as alabaster." 

The pedagogue learns that parental prejudice sometimes 
extends to an extravagant pampering of offspring, even 
carried so far as an absurd opposition to wholesome dis- 
cipline. Summoned to London on some bothering law 
business for what was called the neglect of a boy, he ex- 
plains to the sympathetic Ralph Nickleby that the lad had 
as good grazing as there was to be had.^ 

"When a boy gets weak and ill and don't relish his meals, 
we give him a change of diet — turn him out, for an hour or so 
every day, into a neighbor's turnip-field, or sometimes, if it's 

"Noble old boy, an't he? * * * generous old buck. Confiding old 
boy. Philanthropic old buck. Benevolent old boy! Twenty per cent I en- 
gaged to pay him, sir. But we never do business for less, at our shop." Little 
Dorrit, I, 554. 

1 Oliver Tzvist, 219. 

2 Nicholas Nickleby, II, 26. 



140 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

a delicate case, a turnip-field and a piece of carrots alternately, 
and let him eat as many as he likes. There an't better land in 
the county than this perwerse lad grazed on, and yet he goes 
and catches cold and indigestion and what not, and then his 
friends brings a lawsuit against me!" 

The Professor of Deportment, not subject to these 
sordid contacts, inhales a more rarlfied atmosphere, and 
recognizes the value of a succes cfestime^ sufficient to com- 
pensate for neglect on the part of a stupid public.^ 

"It may not be for me to say that I have been called, for 
some years now. Gentleman Turveydrop; or that His Royal 
Highness, the Prince Regent, did me the honour to inquire, 
on my removing my hat as he drove out of the Pavilion at 
Brighton (that fine building), 'Who is he? Who the devil is 
he? Why don't I know him? Why hasn't he thirty thousand 
a year?' But these are little matters of anecdote — the general 
property, ma'am, — still repeated, occasionally, among the 
upper classes." 

The contributions of the ladies seem to be along psycho- 
logical rather than social or sociological lines. Mrs. 
Nickleby is plaintively aware of the thistle-bail nature of 
the masculine mind, fixed by no friendly star, though the 
star was not wanting. She discerns on the part of her son 
a certain inattentiveness to her remarks.^ 

"But that was always the way with your poor dear papa, — 
just his way — always wandering, never able to fix his thoughts 
on any one subject for two minutes together. I think I see him 
now! * * * looking at me while I was talking to him 
about his affairs, just as if his ideas were in a state of perfect 
conglomeration! Anybody who had come in upon us suddenly 
would have supposed I was confusing and distracting him in- 
stead of making things plainer; upon my word they would." 

* Bleak House, 195. * Nicholas Nickleby, II, 85. 



THE IRONIC 141 

Mrs. Skewton and Mrs. Pardiggle have solved the secret 
of a happy Hfe, but by different ways. The former per- 
ceives it to spring from scholarship vivified by enthusiasm 
for the fascinating perspectives of history.^ 

"Those darling bygone times, Mr. Carker, * * * with 
their delicious fortresses, and their dear old dungeons, and their 
delightful places of torture, and their romantic vengeances, 
and their picturesque assaults and sieges, and everything that 
makes life truly charming! How dreadfully we have degen- 
erated. * * * We have no faith in the dear old barons, who 
were the most delightful creatures — or in the dear old priests, 
who were the most warlike of men — or even in the days of that 
inestimable Queen Bess, which were so extremely golden! 
Dear creature! She was all heart! And that charming father 
of hers! I hope you dote on Henry the Eighth!" 

The latter, on the other hand, lives in the present, is 
attuned to the carpe diem idea, and realizes the joy of self- 
expression and the exhilaration of labor. ^ 

"I freely admit, I am a woman of business. I love hard 
work; I enjoy hard work. The excitement does me good. I 
am so accustomed and inured to hard work, that I don't know 
what fatigue is. * * * This gives me a great advantage 
when I am making my rounds. If I find a person unwilling to 
hear what I have to say, I tell that person directly, 'I am in- 
capable of fatigue, my good friend, I am never tired, and I 
mean to go on till I have done.' It answers admirably!" 

In contrast to the various methods of Dickens, Trollope 
practically confines himself to direct comment. His favor- 
ite topics are politics and society. As to the former, radi- 
cal iconoclasm is described in the person of Mr. Turnbull.' 

1 Dombey and Son, 433. ^ Bleak House, 105. 

* Phineas Finn, I, 214. In the story same Lady Glencora uses the Socratic 
method on Mrs. Bonteen to make her admit she is really an advocate of social 
equality. 



142 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

"Having nothing to construct, he could always deal with gen- 
eralities. Being free from responsibility, he was not called upon 
either to study details or to master even great facts. * * * 
Mr. Monk had once told Phineas Finn how great were the 
charms of that inaccuracy which was permitted to the Opposi- 
tion." 

The always useful ironic device of simply delineating 
one's objects with brushes and colors of their own, of pre- 
senting them as they see themselves, is used in one episode 
both on an institution and an individual. The Press re- 
acts to the appointment of a scoundrel to the Cabinet.^ 

"The Jupiter, with withering scorn, had asked whether 
vice of every kind was to be considered, in these days of Queen 
Victoria, as a passport to the cabinet. Adverse members of 
both Houses had arrayed themselves in a pure panoply of moral- 
ity, and thundered forth their sarcasms with the indignant 
virtue and keen discontent of political Juvenals." 

Nevertheless, the new incumbent enjoys his emolu- 
ments.^ 

"Now, as he stood smiling on the hearthrug of his official 
fireplace, it was quite pleasant to see the kind, patronizing smile 
which lighted up his features. He delighted to stand there, 
with his hands in his trousers pocket, the great man of the place, 
conscious of his lordship, and feeling himself every inch a min- 
ister." 

With reference to what was then a new policy of admin- 
istration, he employs ironic exhortation.^ 

"Let every place in which a man can hold up his head be the 
reward of some antagonistic struggle, of some grand compet- 

1 Frandey Parsonage, 180. 

"^ Ibid., 183. Cf. Heine's remark of Louis Phillipe, that he "rose in solid 
majesty, every pound a king." 

^ The Bertrams, 6. There are pages in this strain. 



THE IRONIC 143 

itive examination. Let us get rid of the fault of past ages. 
With us, let the race be ever to the swift, and victory always to 
the strong. And let us always be racing, so that the swift and 
strong shall ever be known among us. But what, then, for 
those who are not swift, not strong? Va victis! Let them go 
to the wall. They can hew wood, probably; or, at any rate, 
draw water." 

The thing in society which Trollope apparently finds 
most open to ironic treatment is the commercializing of 
marriage. In one place this takes the form of sage advice.^ 

"There is no doubt but that the privilege of matrimony offers 
opportunities to money loving young men which ought not to be 
lightly abused. Too many young men marry without giving 
any consideration to the matter whatever. * * * ^ j^^n 
can be young but once, and, except in cases of a special inter- 
position of Providence, can marry but once. The chance, 
once thrown away, may be said to be irrecoverable. * * * 
Half that trouble, half that care, a tithe of that circumspection 
would, in early youth, have probably secured to them the en- 
during comforts of a wife's wealth. * * * There is no road 
to wealth so easy and respectable as that of matrimony; that 
is, of course, provided that the aspirant declines the slow course 
of honest work." 

However, in default of golden attractions, a wife may 
have other assets. Griselda Grantly had neither houses 
nor land, neither title nor position. But Lord Dumbello 
had all these, and needed only a lay figure for lovely clothes 
to grace his establishment; the more icily regular and splen- 
didly null, the better. 2 

"But a handsome woman at the head of your table, who 
knows how to dress and how to sit, and how to get in and out 
of her carriage — ^who will not disgrace her lord by her ignorance, 

1 Dr. Thome, 207. ^ Framley Parsonage, 477. 



144 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

or fret him by her coquetry, or disparage him by her talent — how 
beautiful a thing it is! For my own part I think that Griselda 
Grantly was born to be the wife of a great English peer." 

It is comforting to know that in the midst of these lofty 
circles the daughter of the archdeacon did not lose the vir- 
tue of humility; for we read in a subsequent narrative: ^ 

"But, now and again, since her august marriage, she had 
laid her coronated head upon one of the old rectory pillows for 
a night or two, and on such occasions all the Plumsteadians had 
been loud in praise of her condescension." 

The difference between the novelists just discussed and 
the remaining half of the list, in the use of irony, is more 
easily perceived than defined. It can only be suggested 
by metaphor. Confectionery may be flavored, for instance 
with citron in lumps or liquid peppermint. It is evident 
that the former is more visible and detachable, but that 
the latter affects more pervasively the quality of the prod- 
uct. In the concoctions already mentioned, from Lytton to 
Trollope, it is easy enough to stick in one's thumb and pull 
out a plum. All the plums being pulled out, the character 
of the remaining portion would not be radically changed. 
But peppermint cannot be extracted except by a process 
of chemical dissolution; and if it could, the taste of the 
whole would be altered. Yet it is not patent to eye or 
finger, though not wanting in stimulus to other senses. 
These two ingredients, however, are not mutually exclu- 
sive. The permeated may also be sufficiently glomerate 
to permit of some dissection; only the operation is less 
fully explanatory of the whole. 

For example, we may extract from Peacock his de- 
scription of the Abbey of Rubygill, situated — ^ 

^ Last Chronicles^ i6. ^ Maid Marian, l$. 



THE IRONIC 145 

"* * * in a spot which seemed adapted by nature to be 
the retreat of monastic mortification, being on the banks of a 
fine trout-stream, and in the midst of woodland coverts, abound- 
ing with excellent game." 

Or of the sword of Matilda, which went — * 

"* * * nigh to fathom even that extraordinary depth of 
brain which always by divine grace furnishes the interior of a 
head-royal." 

Or the reply of Mr. Cypress to Dr. Folliott's statement 
of the Brotherhood of Man: ^ 

"Yes, sir, as the hangman is of the thief; the squire of the 
poacher; the judge of the libeller; the lawyer of his client; the 
statesman of his colleague; the bubble-blower of the bubble- 
buyer; the slave-driver of the negro: as these are brethren, so 
am I and the worthies in question." 

But this would give little idea of Peacock's prevailing 
attitude, — a cheerfully sardonic amusement at the state 
of human affairs, expressed most frequently by means of 
an ironic juxtaposition of Past and Present. 

Less cheerful and more sardonic is the smile with which 
Butler greets life and its follies. He is classed with Peacock 
as a romanticist in method, but is more akin to Swift in 
temper and manner than to any Victorian. The reader's 
mind must be kept taut in the constant process of trans- 
lating the assumed pose into the real meaning. Under 
the grave disapproval of the Erewhonian treatment of dis- 
ease or any misfortune, and crime, each being discussed 
in the terms we apply to the other, lurks the reversed 
judgment. Nothing short of complete presentation, es- 
pecially of the chapters on Current Opinions, Some Ere- 

^ Maid Marian, 96. * Crochet Castle, 90. 



146 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

whonian Trials, The Musical Banks, and The Colleges of 
Unreason, could convey an adequate impression. 

A representative sample, however, is found in the retort 
of the judge who pronounces sentence on the youth 
"charged with having been swindled out of a large prop- 
erty during his minority by his guardian." The defend- 
ant puts up the plea natural under the circumstances, and 
is promptly instructed not to talk nonsense: ^ 

"People have no right to be young, inexperienced, greatly in 
awe of their guardians, and without independent professional 
advice. If by such indiscretions they outrage the moral sense 
of their friends, they must expect to suffer accordingly." 

Later a thorough exposition of this legal philosophy is 
given in a long judicial oration preceding the doom of a 
prisoner found guilty of pulmonary consumption. A few 
excerpts show the trend of the argument.^ 

"It is all very well for you to say that you came of unhealthy 
parents, and had a severe accident in your childhood which 
permanently undermined your constitution; excuses such as 
these are the ordinary refuge of the criminal; but they cannot 
for one moment be listened to by the ear of justice. * * * 
There is no question of how you came to be wicked, but only 
this — namely, are you wicked or not? * * * It is intolerable 
that an example of such terrible enormity should be allowed 
to go at large unpunished. Your presence in the society of 
respectable people would lead the less able-bodied to think 
more lightly of all forms of illness; * * * ^ ^jj^g of univer- 
sal dephysicalization would ensue; medicine vendors of all 
kinds would abound in our streets and advertise in all our 
newspapers. * * * Jf you tell me that you had no hand 
in your parentage and education, * * * I answer that 
whether your being in a consumption is your fault or no, it is 
^ Erewhon, 110. ^ Ibid., 112-116. 



THE IRONIC 147 

a fault in you, and it is my duty to see that against such faults 
as this the commonwealth shall be protected. You may say 
that it is your misfortune to be criminal; I answer that it is your 
crime to be unfortunate." 

This is a fit successor to the marvelous "Let no man" 
conclusion to the Modest Proposal. 

Another unomittable instance is the account of a relig- 
ious reformation. The visitor hints to a Musical Bank 
manager that the popular reliance on that currency was 
rather perfunctory, and that the other financial system, 
ostensibly flouted, was the real repository of coin and con- 
fidence.^ 

"He said that it had been more or less true till lately, but 
that now they had put fresh stained glass windows into all the 
banks in the country, and repaired the buildings, and enlarged 
the organs; the presidents, moreover, had taken to riding in 
omnibuses and talking nicely to people in the streets, and to 
remembering the ages of their children, and giving them things 
when they were naughty, so that all would henceforth go 
smoothly. 

"'But haven't you done anything to the money itself?' said 
I, timidly. 

"*It is not necessary,' he rejoined; 'not in the least necessary, 
I assure you.'" 

One citation also from Butler's novel Is irresistible, par- 
ticularly as it reminds one of Trollope's practical admoni- 
tion to young men contemplating matrimony. This is on 
the subject of domestic discipline.^ 

^ Erewhon, 153. Butler's ability to deliver the casual nudge as well as the 
deliberate blow is shown in a feature of the prison regime; convict labor is re- 
quired, — a trade already learned, if possible, otherwise — "if he be a gentleman 
born and bred to no profession, he must pick oakum, or write art criticisms for a 
newspaper." 126. 

2 The Way of All Flesh, 26. 



148 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

"To parents who wish to lead a quiet Hfe I would say: Tell 
your children that they are very naughty — much naughtier 
than most children. Point to the young people of some ac- 
quaintances as models of perfection and impress your own 
children with a deep sense of their own inferiority. You carry 
so many more guns than they do that they cannot fight you. 
This is called moral influence, and it will enable you to bounce 
them as much as you please. * * * g^y ^h^t you have 
their highest interests at stake whenever you are out of temper 
and wish to make yourself unpleasant by way of balm to your 
soul. Harp much upon these highest interests." 

Thackeray is placed in the group of dyed-in-the-wool 
ironists mainly because he does not belong in the other. 
One somehow acquires the impression that ironic sayings 
will be plentiful as blackberries; but when one actually 
goes berrying, he finds the crop strangely vanished. Lack- 
ing the grave, dry, imperturbable manner and the con- 
sistently preserved attitude, he cannot avoid the temp- 
tation of relapsing into the literal and giving self-con- 
scious explanations, as in Barry Lyndon^ and Catherine. 
This produces something of the effect of Lydgate's ironic 
titles, — So as the Crabhe goeth forward y and As Straight as 
a Rams Horn., — followed by perfectly serious moralizing. 
Probably nothing would astonish or distress Thackeray 
more than to have his humor rated as the humor of Lytton, 
Reade, or Kingsley; nor would this indeed be quite fair to 
him. Yet his lack of real spontaneity classifies him with 
them rather than with Dickens or Trollope, and his lack of 
finish and subtlety prevents him from being ranked with 
Peacock, Eliot, Meredith or Butler. His ironic phrasing 
has too often the flat, shallow sound of the man determined 
to be clever. Such, for instance, is the comment on the 
plutocratic Miss Crawley: ^ 

^ Vanity Fair, I, 115. 



THE IRONIC I49 

"She had a balance at the banker's which would have made 
her beloved anywhere. * * * What a dignity it gives an 
old lady, that balance at the banker's!" 

Such also is this demolishing assault upon worldliness : ^ 

"I, for my part, have known a five pound note to interpose 
and knock up a half century's attachment between two breth- 
ren; and can't but admire, as I think what a fine and durable 
thing Love is among worldly people." 

And this upon a shoddy noblesse oblige: ^ 

"I admire that admiration which the genteel world sometimes 
extends to the commonalty. There is no more agreeable object 
in life than to see May Fair folks condescending." 

When he gravely admonishes, it is as follows: ^ 

"Praise everybody, I say to such; never be squeamish, but 
speak out your compliment both point blank to a man's face, 
and behind his back, when you know there is a reasonable 
chance of his hearing it again." 

The direct satire on Pitt Crawley as an undergraduate 
is given an ironic fillip by another sting in the tail: ^ 

"But though he had a fine flux of words, and delivered his 
little voice with great pomposity and pleasure to himself, and 
never advanced any sentiment or opinion which was not per- 
fectly trite and stale, and supported by a Latin quotation; 
yet he failed somehow, in spite of a mediocrity which ought 
to have insured any man a success." 

Another successful bit, — this time the device of catching 
an unwary character in an ironic trap, — is the account of 
Penn's linguistic proficiency. His friend Strong compli- 
ments him on speaking French like Chateaubriand, — ^ 

^ Vanity fair, I, 128. - Ibid., 192. ^ Ibid, 255. * Ibid, no. 

* Pevdennis, II, 22. 



150 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

"'I've been accustomed to it from my youth upwards,' said 
Pen; and Strong had the grace not to laugh for five minutes, 
when he exploded into fits of hilarity which Pen has never, 
perhaps, understood up to this day." 

In her preface to the second edition of Jane Eyre, Char- 
lotte Bronte said that Thackeray resembled Fielding "as 
an eagle does a vulture;" and also compared the former to 
a Hebrew prophet. Putting aside the injustice to Field- 
ing (happily atoned for by the author of Middlemarchy 
thereby restoring the average in feminine criticism) one 
is moved to reply that if any Victorian shoulders received 
the mantle of Elijah they were undoubtedly the firm- 
muscled ones of George Eliot. Hers is the union of na- 
tive, smoldering wit and tremendous moral earnestness 
that marked the ancient Semitic race and reappeared in the 
modern Saxon. The downright seriousness which consti- 
tutes her main mood is tinctured but lightly with the ironic 
tone, but its pungency is well distributed. Its appear- 
ance is characterized by brevity and frequency. There 
are no long passages of sustained irony; and no very long 
ones wholly devoid of it. It usually occurs in quiet, un- 
ostentatious phrases, as in the description of the Raveloe 
philosophy, or of that superior family whose daughters 
bloomed into the Mesdames Deane, Glegg, Pullet, and 
Tulliver. 

The cogitative Mr. Glegg, for instance, had a truly sci- 
entific attitude toward the captious temper that enlivened 
his home, — ^ 

"* * * j|. jg certain that an acquiescent mild wife would 
have left his meditations comparatively jejune and barren of 
mystery." 

1 Mill on the Floss, I, 189. 



THE IRONIC 151 

Mrs. Waule, on the other hand, was an acquiescent 
mild soul, and accepted domestic frankness as in the order 
of nature, — ^ 

"Indeed, she herself was accustomed to think that entire 
freedom from the necessity of behaving agreeably was included 
in the Almighty's intentions about families." 

From this banter we pass to a bitter sarcasm that covers 
a burning social sympathy in the account of the Floren- 
tine banquet, where none could eat the tough, expensive 
peacock, but all gloried in the extravagance of having it 
to play with, — ^ 

"And it would have been rashness to speak slightingly of 
peacock's flesh, or any other venerable institution at a time when 
Fra Girolamo was teaching the disturbing doctrine that it was 
not the duty of the rich to be luxurious for the sake of the poor." 

Irony is applied to two young men, with totally different 
purposes; in one case it is directed against the youth him- 
self; in the other, against an anticipated criticism of his 
conduct. 

Fred Vincy belongs to the class of which Algernon Blan- 
cove is the most brilliant representative, and from which 
Evan Harrington made an early escape. He is persuaded 
that he "wouldn't have been such a bad fellow if he had 
been rich." But his destiny induces in him " a streak of 
misanthropic bitterness." ^ 

"To be born the son of a Middlemarch manufacturer, and 
the inevitable heir to nothing in particular, while such men as 

1 Middlemarch, I, 161. This book is also pervaded by the exuberant presence 
of the versatile but cautious Mr. Brooke, who had always "gone a good deal 
into that at one time," but always wisely refrained from pushing it too far, 
as one never can tell where such things will lead. 

2 Romola, II, 523. » Middlemarch^ I, 179. 



152 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

Mainwaring and Vyan — certainly life was a poor business, 
when a spirited young fellow, with a good appetite for the best 
of everything, had so poor an outlook." 

Of contrasting caliber is Adam Bede, whose vision is 
turned outward and even upward, instead of altogether 
inward; and whose survey causes a feeling of modesty 
rather than injured conceit.^ 

"Adam, I confess, was very susceptible to the influence of 
rank, and quite ready to give an extra amount of respect to 
every one who had more advantages than himself, not being 
a philosopher, or a proletaire with democratic ideas, but simply 
a stout-limbed clever carpenter with a large fund of reverence 
in his nature, which inclined him to admit all established claims 
unless he saw very clear grounds for questioning them." 

George Eliot was held in high esteem by George Mere- 
dith; and the two were indeed akin in outlook, and very 
much so in the matter of ironic usage, in spite of their 
wide difference in general style. But the Meredithian so- 
lution is at once more saturated and more subtle, combined 
with greater uniformity of effect. This, however, does not 
spell monotony, diversity being furnished by range of 
ideas and breadth of subject-matter. Meredith has one 
ironic mold, but into it he pours a procession of contents 
of great variety. The tone, it is unnecessary to say, is un- 
dilutedly masculine; so is Eliot's, except for the presence of 
an element usually reckoned as feminine, and mentioned, 
by a curious coincidence, in Meredith's approving char- 
acterization of a French writer. In making out his own 
preferred list with accompanying reason, he cites Renan, 
**for a delicate irony scarcely distinguishable from tender- 

1 Adam Bede, I, 245. It could not be said of him as it was of Vincy in the 
above connection, — "The difficult task of knowing another soul is not for young 
gentlemen whose consciousness is chiefly made up of their own wishes." 



THE IRONIC 153 

ness." ^ In this quality Meredith was by no means lack- 
ing, but his ironic mood was inclined to the caustic and 
merciless. 

One of his devices is to substitute for the old mock- 
heroic a new mock-syllogistic, more in accord with modern 
imagination. The great doctrine of Natural Selection is 
applied to human courtship, as exemplified by one of the 
Fittest.2 

"Science thus — or it is better to say, an acquaintance with 
science — facilitates the cultivation of aristocracy. Conse- 
quently a successful pursuit and a wresting of her from a body 
of competitors, tells you that you are the best man. What is 
more, it tells the world so. 

"Willoughby aired his amiable superlatives in the eye of 
Miss Middleton; he had a leg." 

Under the seductive opportunity of table talk Sir Wil- 
loughby again falls a victim to the inductive method. This 
time he is airing his opinion of the French, drawing an 
elaborate analogy from the character of a national sample 
now officiating in the Patterne kitchen. The general va- 
lidity of his conclusion is admitted by his modest secre- 
tary: ^ 

"*A few trifling errors are of no consequence when you are 
in the vein of satire,' said Vernon. * Be satisfied with knowing 
a nation in the person of a cook.'" 

But Sir Willoughby still has twin peaks of eminence to 
surmount: one he achieves when he describes himself to 

1 Lettters, II, 501. In another he speaks of the fine irony of French criticism, 
which "instructs without wounding any but the vanitous person": and adds 
that "England has httle criticism beyond the expression of Hkes and dislikes, 
the stout vindication of an old conservatism of taste." Ibid., 569. 

2 The Egoist, 43. (The "leg" of course referring to Mrs. Jenkinson's famous 
epigram). 

* The Egoist, 113. 



154 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

Lsetitia as a man of humor; and the other when he warns 
Clara to beware of marrying an egoist. 

Perhaps the two best understudies in egoism are Wil- 
fred Pole and Victor Radnor. ' Wilfred is satisfied with the 
talents and charm of his Emilia. And yet ^ 

"It was mournful to think that Circumstances had not at 
the same time created the giri of noble birth, or with an instinct 
for spiritual elegance. But the world is imperfect." 

Both have lofty conceptions of loyalty and sacrifice. 
In the case of Wilfred,^ 

"He could pledge himself to eternity, but shrank from being 
bound to eleven o'clock on the morrow morning." 

Victor is convinced of his love for Nataly,^ 

"And he tested it to prove it by his readiness to die for her: 
which is heroically easier than the devotedly living, and has a 
weight of evidence in our internal Courts for surpassing the 
latter tedious performance." 

The occasion of the splendid housewarming at Lake- 
lands is made into a text on the perils of feminism. In a 
crowded hall — ^ 

"Chivalry stood. It is a breeched abstraction, sacrificing 
voluntarily and genially to the Fair, for a restoring of the bal- 
ance between the sexes, that the division of good things be rather 
in the fair ones' favor as they are to think: with the warning 
to them, that the establishment of their claim for equality 
puts an end to the priceless privileges of petticoats. Women 
must be mad, to provoke such a warning; and the majority 
of them submissively show their good sense." ("With that 

1 Sandra Belloni, 1^7. ^ One of Our Conquerors, 415. 

2 Ibid., 153. * Ibid., 195. 



THE IRONIC 155 

innate submissiveness," speaks up George Eliot, "of the goose, 
so beautifully corresponding to the strength of the gander.") 

Another evidence of bewildering perversity is equally 
apposite to the present moment of history. The Austrian 
Lieutenant Jenna is discoursing on the Italians and the 
habit of the captured of spending their enforced solitude 
in writing Memoirs: ^ 

"My father said — the stout old Colonel — 'Prisons seem to 
make these Italians take an interest in themselves.' 'Oh!' 
says my mother, 'why can't they be at peace with us?' 
'That's exactly the question,' says my father, 'we're always 
putting to them.' And so I say. Why can't they let us smoke 
our cigars in peace?'* 

But England does not lag behind in the matter of the 
application of the intellect to practical questions. The 
country squires are excited over the approach of the open 
game season; moreover, — ^ 

"The entire land (signifying all but all of those who occupy 
the situation of thinkers in it) may be said to have been exhaling 
the same thought in connection with September. Our England 
holds possession of a considerable portion of the globe, and it 
keeps the world in awe to see her bestowing so considerable a 
portion of intelligence upon her recreations. To prosecute 
them with her whole heart is an ingenious exhibition of her 
power." 

It is naturally the fate of the active to suffer from Phil- 
istine misapprehension, particularly when the activity is 
racial: ^ 

1 Vittoria, 373. 
^ Beauchamp's Career, 369. 

^ Sandra Belloni, 68. This is followed by a fling at the " alliance with Destiny", 
which reminds us of our recent American slogan of " Manifest Destiny." 



1 56 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

"Foreigners pertinaciously misunderstand us. They have 
the barbarous habit of judging by results. Let us know our- 
selves better. It is melancholy to contemplate the intrigues, 
and \-ile designs, and vengeances of other nations; and still 
more so, after we have written so many pages of intelligible 
history, to see them attributed to us. Will it never be perceived 
that we do not sow the thing that happens?" 

This rhetorical irony, which we have found so widely 
distributed, is a sign of temperament at the most, and at 
the least only of habit, — a mannerism of style. Philosoph- 
ical irony, a sense of the irony of life, is an indicator of 
character and the whole interpretation of experience. The 
tw^o kinds may or may not coincide. It happens, for in- 
stance, that the two great ironists who inclose the Vic- 
torian period like a pair of chronological brackets, illus- 
trate them separately. Jane Austen is habitually ironic 
in speech, but no novel of hers manifests an idea of the 
irony of fate. Her situations are too simple, too blandly 
logical, to be devised by a Destiny either impishly mali- 
cious or cruelly malignant. But Thomas Hardy takes all 
his reasonable logic and bland simplicity out in lan- 
guage. He seldom introduces the caustic reflection. 
There is little of the acrid in the flavor of his style. It is 
all poured into the story. The conditions he portrays con- 
vey their own poignancy, and tell their own tale of gra- 
tuitous failure and superfluous sacrifice. 

Of this sharp impression of life as consisting of the 
nearly-achieved or barely-failed, there are indications here 
and there in mid-century fiction, but no thoroughgoing 
exponent, because none of that unqualified pessimism 
which acknowledges irrationality as the presiding genius 
of the world. It is natural that in Disraeli, Bronte, Kings- 
ley, circumstantial irony should be as snakes in Iceland; 



THE IRONIC 157 

and that Lytton, Gaskell, Dickens, Thackeray, Reade, 
should furnish a pair of white crows apiece. It is inter- 
esting though also not astonishing to find that out of about 
three dozen culled examples, Peacock and Butler not 
counted because they do not work in the medium of nor- 
mal circumstance, Meredith leads with nearly one-third 
the total amount, Eliot being a close second, and Trol- 
lope a lagging third. Yet these three are decidedly anti- 
ironic in general belief; shown both by actual testimony 
and by implication. The former comes, as would be sup- 
posed, from Meredith. Writing to a friend and alluding to 
the weakness of old age, he says, — ^ 

**We who have loved the motion of legs and the sweep of 
the winds, we come to this. But for myself, I will own that it is 
the natural order. There is no irony in Nature." 

In his last novel he gives a backhanded thrust at the 
ironic philosophy in his favorite equivocal fashion: ^ 

"We are convinced we have proof of Providence intervening 
when some terrific event of the number at its disposal accom- 
plishes the thing and no more than the thing desired." 

In the same story the motive and emotion of the bride- 
groom is thus described: ^ 

"A sour rehsh of the irony in his present position sharpened 
him to deviUsh enjoyment of it, as the finest form of loath- 
ing: * * * He had cried for Romance — here it was!" 

But the author makes it clear that this irony is subjective. 
The objective complement to it arrives later, and its real 
name is Nemesis. 

1 Letters, II, 555. To Leslie Stephen, 1904. 

2 An Amazing Marriage, 480. 

' Ibid., 147. Cf. also citations in the first part of this chapter. 



158 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

Subjective also is it in the one account we have from 
George Ehot: ^ 

"But anyone watching keenly the stealthy convergence of 
human lots, sees a slow preparation of effects from one life on 
another, which tells like a calculated irony on the indifference 
or the frozen stare with which we look at our unintroduced 
neighbor. Destiny stands by sarcastic with our dramatis 'per- 
sonce folded in her hand." 

That is, our ignorance makes a dramatic Irony out of a 
situation in itself a link in the logical chain of cause 
and effect. 

The implication that to the Victorians life is on the 
whole rational rather than ironic is made by the fact that 
the ironic situations are incidental, and the conclusions 
are based on poetic justice, whether happy or tragic, and 
not on ironic injustice. It may be worth noting that these 
various situations seem divisible into three or four classes, 
and that such division serves to bring some order out of 
the chaos of their multiplicity. 

There is first the Irony already mentioned as dramatic, 
where ignorance is not bliss. Such Is the case In Lytton's 
Alice ^ when Maltravers falls In love with his own unknown 
daughter, an (Edipean tragedy being averted by timely 
information. A similar relationship with opposite effect 
Is that of Harold Transome, exasperating with warnings 
of exposure the slippery scoundrel Jermyn, until he forces 
the incredible exposure of his own social position. Even 
more Ironic Is that behavior which in ignorant zeal pre- 

1 Middlemarch, I, 142. She also comments as follows on the undeniably just 
statement of Jermyn to Mrs. Transome that Harold should be told the secret 
of his birth: 

"Perhaps some of the most terrible irony of the human lot is this of a deep 
truth coming to be uttered by lips that have no right to it." Felix Holt, II, 242. 



THE IRONIC 159 

cipitates the very calamity it strives to avoid. Thus does 
Mrs. Tulliver, "a hen taking to reflection on how to pre- 
vent Hodge from wringing her neck," when she adroitly 
tries to persuade Wakem not to buy the Mill, thereby put- 
ting the notion of doing it into his head. Lady Glencora, 
in Phineas Finn^ pleading with Madame Max not to marry 
the Duke of Omnium, unaware of her already made deci- 
sion not to do so, very nearly meets with the same kind of 
gratuitious failure. Of a different order is the use of secret 
knowledge to extract an advantage from the ignorant ad- 
versary who misunderstands the allusions; as Sandra Bel- 
loni, arousing Mr. Pole's enthusiasm for her as a daughter- 
in-law, good enough for any man indeed, — except his 
unsuspected self, who was the only one desired. At three 
fine banquets dramatic irony sits as an unwelcome guest: 
at Arthur Donnithorne's birthday feast, where the warm 
tribute paid him by Adam Bede and Mr. Poyser would 
have turned to ashes in their mouths had they known the 
truth; at Mr. Vane's dinner for Peg Woffington, at which 
his innocent wife appears just in time to assume all the 
honors to herself; and at the Jocelyn party, where the 
daughters of the great Mel have him to digest. 

Another sort of irony comes from the reversed wheel of 
fortune. This is also dramatic, being in fact the keynote 
of the mediaeval idea of tragedy, though all such reversal 
is not ironic. Authur Clennam in the Marshalsea might 
be an instance, albeit less perfect than William Dorrit 
fancying himself there when he was really in the perfectly 
appointed Merdle dining room. There is a double rever- 
sal of expectation that turns Fred Vincy into a passable 
success, through being cheated out of his legacy, while 
Dorothea Brooke and Tertius Lydgate are thwarted into 
comparative failure. Another subdivision is that com- 



l6o SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

plete fall in which the victim does, and gladly, the thing 
he has previously sworn he would in no wise ever do; wit- 
ness Sir Willoughby in triumph over the winning of the 
lady with brains, afterward to learn " the nature of that 
possession in the woman who is our wife." 

Then there is the granted desire; as if mother Fate hear- 
ing her children beg for poisoned candy said. Well, take it 
then, and see how you like it. Lady Mason, in Orley 
Farrriy Mrs. Transome, Sir Richard Feverel, are all devoted 
parents who are allowed to have their own way in plans 
for their children, and merely asked to abide by the conse- 
quences. The death of Raffles comes most opportunely for 
Mr. Bulstrode, and seals his doom. 

The irony of the lost opportunity is hard to distinguish 
from just retribution. Philip Beaufort, killed on his way 
to a belated deed of duty to his family; Trollope's Claver- 
ings and Bertrams; Godfrey Cass, Lord Fleetwood, Ed- 
ward Blanco ve, all are made to feel the ironic undercur- 
rent of that water the mill will never grind with, because 
it has passed. 

In addition to these exemplar attention might be called 
to a trio of ironic titles: Great Expectations ., Beauchamp^ s 
Career J and One of Our Conquerers. 

Though all the novelists indulge at times in the use of 
irony, Meredith alone offers a definition. In one place in 
the Essay on Comedy ^ he characterizes it as the honeyed 
sting which leaves the victim in doubt as to having been 
hurt. In another, he expands the idea: 

"Irony is the humour of satire; it may be savage as in Swift, 
with a moral object, or sedate, as in Gibbon, with a malicious. 
The foppish irony fretting to be seen, and the irony which 
leers, that you shall not mistake its intention, are failures in 
satiric effort pretending to the treasures of ambiguity." 



TH E IRONIC l6l 

Some there are who are not quite guiltless of these fail- 
ures, but Meredith is not one of them. He is unique also, 
except for the corroboration of George Eliot, in making 
the ironic interpretation of life in itself an object of 
satire, in so far as it is brought forward as an excuse for 
our deficiencies, for then it betrays a certain weakness in 
our mental processes. For this he has one direct spokes- 
man and two or three dramatic examples. The former is 
the incisive Redworth, who is exasperated at this vi- 
carious refuge claimed by needy human nature.^ 

"'Upon my word,' he burst out, 'I should like to write a 
book of Fables, showing how donkeys get into grinding harness, 
and dogs lose their bones, and fools have their sconces cracked, 
and all run jabbering of the irony of Fate, to escape the annoy- 
ance of tracing the causes. And what are they? Nine times 
out of ten, plain want of patience, or some debt for indul- 
gence, * * * It's the seed we sow, individually or collect- 
ively.'" 

Chief of the latter, — the dramatic examples, — is a youth 
who, just returning from his father's funeral, with bitter 
prospects ahead, encounters a being more wretched than 
himself, a forsaken young woman shelterless, and desper- 
ately ill.^ 

"Evan had just been accusing the heavens of conspiring 
to disgrace him. Those patient heavens had listened, as is 
their wont. They had viewed and not been disordered by his 
mental frenzies. It is certainly hard that they do not come 
down to us, and condescend to tell us what they mean, and be 
' dumb-foundered by the perspicuity of our arguments — the 
argument, for instance, that they have not fashioned us for 
the science of the shears, and do yet impel us to wield them." 

^ Diana of the Crossways, 423. ^ Evan Harrington, 117. 



l62 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

A little later in the same story is a bit of "eloquent and 
consoling philosophy" on a happy juxtaposition of the 
meat and the eaters.* 

"A thing has come to pass which we feel to be right! The 
machinery of the world, then, is not entirely dislocated: there 
is harmony, on one point, among the mysterious powers who 
have to do with us." 

Another deeply meditative young man is Algernon Blan- 
cove. On the very point of turning over a new leaf, he has 
the misfortune to lose a wager of a thousand pounds, — 
which he did not have in the first place.^ 

"A rage of emotions drowned every emotion in his head, and 
when he got one clear from the mass, it took the form of a bitter 
sneer at Providence, for cutting off his last chance of reforming 
his conduct and becoming good. What would he not have 
accomplished, that was brilliant, and beautiful, and soothing, 
but for this dead set against him!" 

With a gentler touch Clotilde is pictured, on hearing of 
the disaster to Alvin, as venting the "laugh of the tragic 
comedian." ^ 

"She laughed. The world is upside down — a world without 
light, or pointing finger, or affection for special favorites, and 
therefore bereft of all mysterious and attractive wisdom, a 
crazy world, a corpse of a world — if this be true!" 

One more angle has Meredith from which to view this 
subject, and this shows up the absurdity of the opposite 
type, — the superior philosopher who disdains to apply the 

^ Evan Harrington, 137. 

2 Rhoda Fleming, 301. Later, however, an equivalent amount, placed in 
his hands in trust for another purpose, conveniently paid this debt. "It was 
enough to make one in love with civilization." Ibid., 326. 

' The Tragic Comedians, 195. 



THE IRONIC 163 

ironic explanation to his own affairs, but prides himself on 
his detached, Olympian, ironic view of the cosmos. This 
spirit is incarnate in the wise youth, Adrian Harley.^ 

"He had no intimates except Gibbon and Horace, and the 
society of these fine aristocrats of literature helped him to accept 
humanity as it had been, and was; a supreme ironic procession, 
with laughter of Gods in the background. Why not laughter of 
mortals also?" 

From the tranquillity of this calm eminence he observes 
the mortal excitement produced by the news of Richard's 
marriage.^ 

"When one has attained that felicitous point of wisdom from 
which one sees all mankind to be fools, the diminutive objects 
may make what new moves they please, one does not marvel 
at them; their sedateness is as comical as their frolic, and their 
frenzies more comical still." 

Whether or not there is such an actuality as an Ironic 
Fate, upon whom mortals may blame their failures, or 
against whom they are doomed to strive in vain, is as 
speculative a question as any in metaphysics. The 
ironist is as dogmatic as the theist; and he no doubt gets 
as much satisfaction from his denial of a rationally ordered 
universe, as the other does from his assertion of it. To be 
able to fling back a jest into the face of the Sphinx is un- 
deniably a poor equivalent for guessing her riddle, but it 
at least helps to take the edge off her inscrutability. 

In his La Satire en France^ Lenient makes irony the 
opposite of enthusiasm, and emphasizes the fact and the 
necessity of their perennial alternation, like the recurrence 
of day and night. It would indeed be a fearful world whose 

* Richard Feverel, 8. ^ Ibid., 322. 



164 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

passive, indifferent night was succeeded by no bright, clear, 
active day. But it would also be a wearisome world whose 
glare never merged into the refreshing season of dusky 
shadows, quiet half-tones, and twinkling stars. It is well 
that they are reciprocal and that ''sous ces noms divers 
reproduera Veternelle antethese qui s'agite au fond de toute 
societe^ 



PART III 
OBJECTS 



CHAPTER I 

INDIVIDUALS 

As the target to the missile, so is its object to satire. A 
target is in itself a thing of sufficient identity to be amenable 
to definition, — even if that can be no more precise than 
"something aimed at." But in the concrete there are 
targets and targets. So, while the satirized may be re- 
duced to an abstract entity, as deception or some other 
ubiquitous trait of human nature, there exist in fact as 
many varieties of the satirized as of satirists. Anything 
which any one may criticise, if it be subject to humorous 
treatment, may be a satirical object. 

But since subdivisions are convenient, we make three for 
this purpose, which seem fairly inclusive, though not at 
all mutually exclusive. The simplest and narrowest class 
is that of actual Individuals. The next is formed by the 
cohesion of individuals into groups, creating Institutions. 
The third is made by the artistic conversion of individuals 
into fictitious characters, sufficiently artificial to be de- 
signated as Types, — more or less complex, according to the 
nature of their creator, but never entirely simple, if they 
are fashioned of human stuff. 

Even more than usual, however, is the caution neces- 
sary that the classification is artificial and the classes in- 
separable. An individual may, and indeed generally does, 
represent an idea or an organization or a certain temper- 
ament. Particularly when an object of satire, John Doe 
is not viewed as John Doe but as an embodiment of some 
principle or kind of conduct disapproved of by his critic. 

167 



l68 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

And conversely, institutions and types, being abstrac- 
tions, must be made concrete to get them into workable 
shape. "The position of the satirist," says Lowell, in 
'The Bigelow Papers y "is oftentimes one which he would 
not have chosen, had the election been left to himself. In 
attacking bad principles, he is obliged to select some indi- 
vidual who has made himself their exponent, and in whom 
they are impersonate, to the end that what he says may 
not, through ambiguity, be dissipated tenues in auras.^* 
Lowell was of course not unaware that the satirist's ob- 
ligation might be met and fulfilled through the method of 
dramatic disguise, but it is evident that the author of the 
Fable for Critics had his leanings toward the personal type. 
Yet he confirms the pious English tradition by adding, — 

"Meanwhile let us not forget that the aim of the true sat- 
irist is not to be severe upon persons, but only upon false- 
hood. * * * Truth is quite beyond the reach of sat- 
ire. * * * Xhe danger of satire is, that continual use may 
deaden his sensibility to the force of language." 

The real secret is that our primitive impulses clamor for 
the delectable diet of personalities, and must be appeased 
by a little judicious indulgence. Under pristine conditions, 
before we learned to be apologetic for our instincts, we 
could enjoy our Fescinnine gibings without a qualm. As 
we grew in poise and culture, we began to feel the need of 
a finer diet for Cerberus, to gratify his acquired taste. 
Such a sop was found in the altruistic motive, inexpensive 
and immediately satisfying. 

But, since motives are rarely single, there is frequently 
in this unconscious pose an admixture of genuine idealism, 
most often of the patriotic sort. La Satire Menippee^ for 
instance, was said to have been worth as much to Henry 



INDIVIDUALS 169 

of Navarre as was the battle of Ivry; and its real object was 
the eternal one of good satire. Says a historian,^ 

"All the mean political rivalries which pretend to work only 
for the public good are exposed there; all those men who take God 
as a shield to hide their own personal baseness, pass before us." 

So also was the Anti-Jacobin designed as an instrument 
for the public weal, though conceived in panic and brought 
forth in extravagance. Both these productions, moreover, 
illustrate the difficulty of distinguishing between personal 
and political or some sort of partisan satire.^ When Claud- 
ius was exposed on his bad eminence by Seneca, Nero, by 
Persius, Domitian, by Juvenal, Wolsey, by Skelton, Na- 
poleon and George the Third, by Byron, and all four 
Georges, by Thackeray, it was in every case, not as a mere 
human Doctor Fell, but as a crafty tyrant or an incom- 
petent mannikin made absurd by an incongruous posi- 
tion of power and authority; although at first the per- 
sonal interest predominated over the political, the latter 
increasing with time. 

In any case, what has preserved personal satire in lit- 
erature has been the amber, not the flies. Such satiric por- 
traits as are saved from oblivion, — as those in Absalom and 
Achitophelj Macflecknoe^ T'he Dunciad^ The Vision of Judg- 
ment^ — are spared, not for their subjects but for the wit 
in which they are dressed, irrespective of the justice or the 
slander stitched into the costume. 

In the field of prose fiction we find a comparatively 
small amount of direct personal satire, and that modicum 
attached to the romantic or fantastic section rather than 

1 Van Laun: History of French Literature, II, 27. 

^ Cf. also the riot of personalities in Blackwood's, Frazer's, and other 
periodicals of their time. 



lyO SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

the realistic. In the latter the fusion of fact and fancy- 
is too subtle to result in overt portraiture. What Dickens 
says of Squeers is true in some degree of all fictitious char- 
acters. All are drawn from observation, but none remain 
precisely as observed, after passing through the crucible 
of their creator's imagination. Of some we chance to know 
more definitely than of others that they were "taken from 
life." Disraeli, for instance, in his Coningsby^ made the 
Honorable J. W. Croker into the politician Rigby, Lord 
George Manners into Henry Sidney, and Lord Hertford 
into the Duke of Monmouth. The last achieved his 
real immortality as the Marquis of Steyne, and Theodore 
Hook also had the double honor of being the original of 
Disraeli's Lucian Gay and Thackeray's Mr. Wagg. Rich- 
ard Monckton Milnes became the Vavasour of Tancred^ 
John Bright, the Mr. Turnbull of Phineas Redux ^ and Ger- 
ald Massey played the title role in Felix Holt. We are 
aware too that their own families supplied material to Dic- 
kens, Bronte, Eliot, and Meredith,^ but we could hardly 
class Mr. Micawber, Shirley Keeldar (or her friend Caro- 
line Helstone), Adam Bede, Dinah Morris, or Melchisedek 
Harrington as examples of personal satire, even when 
given satirical treatment. 

It is natural, therefore, that the member of our group 
who stands preeminent in the line of individual satire is the 
one who also heads the list chronologically; that the next 
are the two Victorian forerunners; and that the only real Vic- 
torian left to complete this small tale does it by virtue of his 
early work. After Thackeray's burlesques, ending about 
1850, the personal species becomes practically extinct. 

Of Peacock's seven stories, the first three, published 
during the second decade of the century, are full of thinly 

1 Butler's etchings in The Way of All Flesh, are also from personal sources. 



INDIVIDUALS 171 

veiled contemporary personalities. The next two, in the 
third decade, have at least the thicker veils of a historical 
perspective. In Crochet Casi/e (iS^i) the early symptoms 
recur, but in much lighter form; and in Peacock's last ap- 
pearance, thirty years after, they have vanished, though 
the staging is current and local. 

The characters in the first three and the sixth are a sort 
of stock company, who reappear in the different dramatis 
personce. Shelley has been identified with Foster of Head- 
long Hally Scythrop of Nightmare Abbey y and Forester of 
Melincourty though this last might also be Lord Monboddo, 
as Peacock, like Spenser, had no objection to the economy 
of duplication. Southey plays the unenviable parts of 
Nightshade in Headlong Hall^ Feathernest in Melincourty 
and Sackbut in Crochet Castle. In the last story, however, 
he may be Mr. Rumblesack Shanstee, since Wordsworth is 
probably meant in Mr. Wilful Wontsee. The latter is also 
Mr. Paperstamp in Melincourt. Coleridge is another of 
triple incarnation, appearing as Mystic in Melincourt. 
Flosky in Nightmare Abbey ^ and Skionar in Crochet Castle. 
In this last volume Byron figures as Cypress, and is prob- 
ably also the Honorable Mr. Listless of Nightmare Abbey. 
Either Gifford or Jeffrey may be intended in Gall, in 
Headlong Hall. In Melincourt^ Canning is Mr. Anyside 
Antijack, and Malthus, Mr. Fax. 

Of all these the most purely personal, in the sense that 
they are satires on the men as individuals and not as rep- 
resentatives of a philosophy or an organization, are the 
hits at Coleridge and Southey.^ The former is allowed 
to speak for himself: ^ 

1 Freeman observes, " Peacock abused contemporary poets generally, the 
Lake School particularly, and Southey in especial, for eighteen years." Thomas 
Love Peacock, A Critical Study, 141. 

^ Melincourt, 106. 



172 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

"*I divide my day,' said Mr. Mystic, 'on a new principle: I 
am always poetical at breakfast, moral at luncheon, metaphys- 
ical at dinner, and political at tea. Now you shall know my 
opinion of the hopes of the world. * * * 

"WTio art thou? — Mystery! — I hail thee! \Mio art thou? — 
Jargon! — I love thee! \Mio art thou? — Superstition! — I 
worship thee! Hail, transcendental Triad!*" 

Later while his companions are concerned practically 
over the catastrophe of an explosion of gas in his room, 
he bewails it as — -^ 

"* * * an infallible omen of evil — a type and symbol 
of an approaching period of public light — when the smoke of 
metaphysical mysten,^ and the vapours of ancient superstition, 
which he had done all that in him lay to consolidate in the spirit 
of man, would explode at the touch of analytical reason, leaving 
nothing but the plain common sense matter-of-fact of moral 
and political truth — a day that he earnestly hoped he might 
never live to see." 

Mr. Floskey is thus described: ^ 

"He had been in his youth an enthusiast for liberty, and had 
hailed the dawn of the French Revolution as the promise of a 
day that was to banish war and slaven,', and every form of 
vice and misery, from the face of the earth. Because all this 
was not done, he deduced that nothing was done, and from this 
deduction, according to his system of logic, he drew a conclu- 
sion that worse than nothing was done, * * * " g^c. 

And thus he describes his opinion of current literature: ' 

"This rage for novelty is the bane of literature. Except my 
works and those of my particular friends, nothing is good that 

1 MelicoouTt, loS. 

^Nightmare Abbey, 23. That this was a typical experience is well known. 
Cf. Browning's Lost Leader. 
* Ibid., 49. 



INDIVIDUALS 173 

is not as old as Jeremy Taylor; and, entre nous, the best parts 
of my friends' books were either written or suggested by my- 
self." 

In the Noctes Ambrosiance, Coleridge gets a contempo- 
rary thrust for his conceit and dogmatism, with the con- 
clusion, — 

"The author o' Christabel, and The AuncUnt Mariner, had 
better just continue to see visions, and to dream dreams — for 
he's no fit for the wakin' world." 

The most direct attack on Southey is in the comment on 
Mr. Feathernest: ^ 

"* * * to whom the Marquis had recently given a place 
in exchange for his conscience. The poet had, in consequence, 
burned his old 'Odes to Truth and Liberty,' and published a 
volume of Panegyrical Addresses 'to all the crowned heads in 
Europe,' with the motto, 'WTiatever is at court, is right.'" 

In Disraeli's Ixion, Enceladus has been identified as 
Wellington, H^'perion as Sir Robert Peel, Jupiter as George 
the Third, and Apollo as Byron. Byronism indeed is one 
of the shining marks loved by the nineteenth century, a 
fact that not only labels the British temper, but illustrates 
the irony of time's revenges. The last great satirist of 
the old school himself becomes the prime object of satire 
for the new, partly through mutual lack of understanding, 
and partly because Byron, like some other brilliant wits, 
lacked a real sense of humor. Both these reasons enabled 
Lytton to flatter himself that his Pelbam had " contributed 
to put an end to the Satanic Mania — to turn the thoughts 
and ambidons of young gentlemen without neckcloths, and 

' Melir^ourt, 80. In his Review of Southey's Colloquies of Society, Macaulay 
points out the Laureate's two unique faculties, — " of believing without a rea- 
son, and of hating without a provocation." 



174 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

young clerks who were sallow, from playing the Corsair 
and boasting that they were villains." ^ 

Nearly a half century after Pelham, we have a reference 
which strikes indirectly the keynote of satire, made by a 
genius great enough to admire judiciously (as he elsewhere 
testifies) another genius.^ 

"Beauchampism, as one confronting him calls it, may be 
said to stand for nearly everything which is the obverse of By- 
ronism, and rarely woos your sympathy, shuns the statuesque 
pathetic, or any kind of posturing." 

It was Lytton, in turn, who was attacked by Thackeray. 
He heads the list of Novels by Eminent Hands^ and is 
brought up again in the Yellowplush Papers and Epistles 
to the Literati. 

But here, as everywhere, the complexity of this type ob- 
trudes itself. Most of the preceding illustrations have been 
concerned with men as authors, that is to say, with certain 
products of literature; and this puts them out of the per- 
sonal class. The same thing is true of Trollope's sar- 
castic allusions to the novels of Disraeli and Dickens, and 
Kingsley's little flings at Coningsby and Young England 
generally. 

No comment on the whole matter of personal satire 
could be more to the point or more conclusive than that 
given informally by Thackeray in a couple of letters con- 
cerning his own attack on Lytton, — which he calls by the 
right name. The first is addressed to Lady Blessington, 
and accounts for his objection to E. L. B.^ 

1 Quoted in his biography, by the Earl of Lytton, I, 347. 

The Ettrick Shepherd tries to rally Tickler out of his glumness by the argu- 
ment, — " Everybody kens ye're a man of genius, without your pretending to be 
melancholy." 

" Beauchamp's Career, 39. 

3 Both are quoted in the Lije by the Earl of Lytton, I, 548, 549. 



INDIVIDUALS 175 

"But there are sentiments in his writings which always anger 
me, big words which make me furious, and a premeditated fine 
writing against which I can't help rebelling. My antipathy 
don't go any further than this." 

The other is written to Lytton himself, calling his at- 
tention to a paragraph in his Preface to the 1856 edition 
of his (Thackeray's) Works; it is this that really contains 
the apology: 

"There are two performances especially (among the critical 
and biographical works of the erudite Mr. Yellowplush) which 
I am very sorry to see reproduced, and I ask pardon of the 
author of The Caxtons for a lampoon which I know he himself 
has forgiven, and which I wish I could recall. * * * j 
wonder at the recklessness of the young man who could fancy 
such satire was harmless jocularity, and never calculate that 
it might give pain." 

This fine utterance, coming at just the right time and 
from the right person, — the last of the personal satirists, re- 
formed into the author of Vanity Fair^ — might be used as 
an appropriate epitaph for individual satire. Since the 
time when Lamb observed that "Satire does not look 
pretty upon a tombstone," we have not only agreed with 
him, but gone enough further to admit that it is no more 
winsome applied to the living than to the dead. And if 
we still for the most part reserve our eulogy until it can 
serve as elegy, we are willing to let the dead past of spite- 
ful, recriminating satire bury its dead. 

It would not, as a matter of fact, be quite fair to the 
past to ignore its own repudiation of this brackish current 
that has discolored the main satiric stream. For it was 
undoubtedly this element that Cervantes had in mind 
when he declared, — ^ 

^ Journey to Parnassus, Chapter IV. Gibson's translation. 



176 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

"My humble pen hath never winged its way 
Athwart the field satiric, that low plain 
Which leads to foul rewards, and quick decay." 

In the bitterly partisan seventeenth century Sir Thomas 
Browne might well say, "It is seldom that men who care 
much for the truth write satire." And in the beginning 
of the next century we find the confession, — ^ 

"Our Satire is nothing but Ribaldry and Billingsgate. Scurril- 
ity passes for wit; and he who can call names in the greatest 
variety of phrases, is looked upon to have the shrewdest pen." 

A later eighteeth century view is voiced by Cowper: ^ 

"Most satirists are indeed a public scourge; 
Their mildest physic is a farrier's purge; 
Their acrid temper turns, as soon as stirr'd, 
The milk of their good purpose all to curd. 
Their zeal begotten, as their works rehearse, 
By lean despair upon an empty purse, 
The wild assassins start into the street, 
Prepar'd to poignard whomsoe'er they meet." 

It is with reference to this conception, induced by this 
type of satire, that a modern critic observes, "It is com- 
monly held by the unreflecting that your satirist is bitter, 
your humorist a jester." ^ 

But in the nineteenth century comes a change brought 
about by two influences: a finer discrimination, which 
shrinks from passing snapjudgments on things in the lump; 
and a more gracious urbanity, sometimes springing from 
that humanitarianism which is the Victorian's pride, 
sometimes masquerading under its guise, sometimes even 

^ Spectator, /^c^l,C. 
* Charity, II, 501 fF. 
■ Lionel Johnson, in Post Liminium. 



INDIVIDUALS 177 

in scorn of it, but always characterized by tact and taste, 
if not by a tender regard for possibly hurt feelings. 

Amidst the abundance of indirect testimony to this 
fact we have two direct ones, from an earlier and a later 
novelist. Lytton declared in Pelham that he "did not 
wish to be an individual satirist." And George Eliot said 
in one of her letters, — 

"We may satirize character and qualities in the abstract 
without injury to our moral nature, but persons hardly ever." 

One of her own critics makes an observation on her work 
which shows the new idea of satire struggling with the old, 
that all satire must be toothed, — in spite of Bishop Hall. 
In the milieu of Eliot, says Mrs. Oliphant, "the satirist 
need be Jio sharper than the humorist^ and may almost ful- 
fil his office lovingly." * 

Whether or not the satirist has any more of an "office" 
than that of being an artist, he is at least beginning to have 
love enough for his art, if not for humanity, to do his work 
as graciously as the nature of it will permit. In Mallock's 
New Republic^ for instance, there is a sort of Peacockian 
revival of personalities. But, while the figures of Carlyle, 
Arnold, Huxley, Jowett, Pater, Ruskin, Rossetti, and 
others, are recognizable through their thin disguises, they 
are not drawn with the caricaturistic strokes that distorted 
tliose of Southey, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley and 
Byron, a generation or so earlier. It is, however, from a 
member of that earlier generation that we get a vivacious 
expression of the self-reflexive irony which is for the satirist 
literally a saving sense of humor. In his Lyric Odes to the 
Royal AcademicianSy Peter Pimlar reports a dialogue with 

^ Victorian Agf of Eng. Lit., 461. 



178 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

Satire, who urges him to attack certain of his contem- 
poraries: 

"'Not write!' cried Satire, red as fire with rage: 
'This instant glorious war with dulness wage; 

******** 

Flay half the Academic imps alive; 

Smoke, smoke, the Drones of that stupendous Hive.'" 

Later, made compunctious by the fable of the frogs pelted 
to death with stones thrown merely in sport, he resolves 
to reform, but is dissuaded: 

"'Poh, poh!' cried Satire with a smile, 
'Where is the glorious freedom of our isle. 
If not permitted to call names?' 
Methought the argument had weight: 
'Satire,' quoth I, 'You're very right;' 
So once more forth volcanic Peter flames." 

"Life," says Hawthorne, "is a mixture of marble and 
mud." In this particular fragment of life as represented 
in literature, we have the two in paradoxical combination. 
Personal satire has the effect sometimes of being an ugly 
little gargoyle made of marble, and sometimes, of a har- 
monius form done in muddy clay. The ideal union of mat- 
ter and manner, — an Apollo in marble, — is not for such an 
impish sculptor as satire. Only to the true artist, poetry, 
is allotted the task of shaping beauty into rounded per- 
fection. 



CHAPTER II 

INSTITUTIONS 

Since institutions are satirized by those who take an in- 
terest in public affairs, without being too well satisfied 
with the way they are managed, we may expect to find 
them conspicuously under indictment at this time. The 
Victorians were notably a public-spirited group, and left 
no cranny unpenetrated by their critical searchlight; for 
it was the lamp they used, and not the hammer. The two 
most striking features of nineteenth century public satire 
are its ubiquity and its moderation. In all departments 
it was zealous for reform; in none did it see the need of 
sweeping abolishment. It emanated from a generation 
poised waveringly between acquiescence and iconoclasm, 
but avoiding both extremes. Awake to the blindness and 
blundering of the past, it was still too rooted in piety and 
tradition to visualize a future radically different. Strong 
remedies, falling short of the drastic and destructive, 
seemed about the right prescription. Dudley Sowerby is 
Victorianism incarnate: ^ 

"* * * he had been educated in his family to believe, 
that the laws governing human institutions are divine — until 
History has altered them. They are altered, to present a fresh 
bulwark against the infidel." 

The Victorians deplored, for instance, the domestic dis- 
aster that inevitably follows the mercenary marriage 
encouraged by Society, but they no more questioned the 

^ One of Our Conquerors, 267. 
179 



l8o SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

marriage ceremony than they would any law of nature. 
Getting Married does not merely happen to be post- 
Victorian; it could not have been otherwise. 

They were also intensely partisan both as to Church and 
State, according to the immemorial human habit; but none 
of them, not even Disraeli or George Eliot, would refuse an 
amen to the invocation of Charlotte Bronte: ^ 

"Britain would miss her church, if that church fell. God save 
it! God also reform it!" 

Their Constitutional Monarchy was a broken reed, worse 
than useless, yet Anarchy was a fearful word, second only 
to Atheism in horrific import. As to the prevailing system 
of education, it was derided as a failure and set down as 
naught; but we hear of no youth abjuring college because 
it wasted his time and money. 

Beyond these negative statements, however, the Vic- 
torians cannot be described en masse, for individuality 
comes into play, both in emphasis of interest and manner 
of attack. Nor is there throughout the strictly Victorian 
period, any discernible evolution of ideas. From Peacock 
to Kingsley the various novelists are to be distinguished 
only by local color and personality. But the two whose 
lives actually extend into the twentieth century are sep- 
arated sharply in this matter from their predecessors, and 
serve as links between their time and ours. This omits 
only George Eliot, who belongs to the second group, al- 
though she uses her modern scientific data seriously and 
not satirically. With Meredith and Butler she forms a 
trio which faces resolutely with the Course of Empire, 
while the others are more or less half-heartedly saying 
their prayers toward the Orient. 

1 Shirley, I, 330, 



INSTITUTIONS l8l 

As to the institutions themselves, started early in the 
human stage through gregariousness and mutual depend- 
ence, and gradually increased until now it is no longer pos- 
sible for two or three to meet together without organizing 
and equipping themselves with officers and constitutions, 
any sort of classification must be as tentative, interpene- 
trating, and unsatisfactory as are most topical outlines. 
But a possible listing of satirized groups or provinces may 
be made under half a dozen headings: Society, State, 
Church, School, Art, and Ideals. 

By Society is meant that powerful but intangible in- 
fluence that has a name but no local habitation. It is in 
effect a federation of homes, organized on the caste system. 
Known as "fashionable," or "polite," its chief concern is 
with the lighter side of man's life; with his recreation if a 
worker, or his amusement if a drone. In view of the fact 
that it is particularly the feminine domain, with the co- 
rollary that Woman's Place is in the Home, She, as a sat- 
irized class, belongs here as appropriately as anywhere. 

The State includes such ramifications as politics, law, 
charities and corrections, labor and capital, and warfare. 
It is in this connection that satire may be defined, as by 
Myers, as "essentially a weapon of the weak against the 
strong, of a minority against a majority;" and by Besant 
in the same terms, the latter adding, " Satire began when 
man began to be oppressed." This statement occurs in 
his French Humourists ^ and it is interesting to note the con- 
firmation implied in Lenient's description of France suf- 
fering under oppression: " Esclave, elk tremble et obeity 
mais se venge par la satire de ceux qui lui font peur.^^ 

The Church, when allied with the State, assumed do- 
minion not only over it but over the Home as well. This 
last, indeed, was raised to the high estate of an Institution 



l82 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

by the joint ministrations of the other two. By imposing 
Marriage upon it, they were enabled to lead it, often more 
firmly than gently, between them; State grasping the 
right hand of Home to insure legalization, and Church 
the left, to produce sanctification. 

More recently Church and School have exchanged 
places in relation to State, as education has become a pub- 
lic concern, and religion a private. Art and Ideals, like 
Society, are not palpably crystallized, but are useful desig- 
nations. The main subject criticised in Art is that branch 
to which the critics themselves belong, Literature. When 
Ideals or Ideas are ridiculed, it is naturally as fallacious 
reasoning or erroneous judgment. Attacks on civilization 
in general and the English species of it in particular, may 
also be put here for want of a better place. 

According to the satirists. Society is at fault chiefly for 
its worship of Mammon, its hollowness, and snobbish van- 
ity. These lead to artificial relationships, the most dis- 
astrous of which is the marriage of convenience, which 
usurps the higher dominion of sentiment and romance. 

Peacock is interested not only in this matrimonial bar- 
gaining but in the accompanying insistence on a decent 
disguise. Mr. Sarcastic is pointing out the astonishing 
results to be secured by a practice of absolute frankness 
in speech. Among other instances, he cites the shock he 
gave Miss Pennylove by declaring to her, — ^ 

"When my daughter becomes of marriageable age, I shall 
commission Christie to put her up to auction, the highest bidder 
to be the buyer, * * * " 

In spite of the lady's utter amazement and indignation, 
she afterwards rejects manhood and love in favor of senil- 
ity and wealth; whereby her critic concludes, — 

1 Melincouri, lo. 



INSTITUTIONS 183 

"How the dignity and delicacy of such a person could have 
been affected, if the preliminary negotiation with her hobbling 
Strephon had been conducted through the instrumentality of 
honest Christie's hammer, I cannot possibly imagine." 

This is evidently not to be construed into a satire against 
women, for Peacock follows the lead of Defoe in the 
chivalrous justice which, so far from ridiculing women, 
pointed out on the contrary the absurdity of the condi- 
tions that had made them seem absurd. In the same story 
he describes Sir Henry as — ^ 

"* * * one of those who maintained the heretical notion 
that women are, or at least may be, rational beings; though, 
from the great pains usually taken in what is called education 
to make them otherwise, there are unfortunately very few 
examples to warrant the truth of the theory." 

In another connection he observes that the repression 
of feminine activity shows — ^ 

"* * * ^jjg usual logic of tyranny, which first places its 
extinguisher on the flame, and then argues that it cannot burn." 

As to the mercenary marriage, further satire is contrib- 
uted by Thackeray, whose plaints over the matches made 
every day in Vanity Fair are well known; by Dickens and 
Bronte in short, glancing shafts; and by Trollope, who 
makes it the main or secondary theme of half a dozen nov- 
els. On the more intricate subject of the Eternal Feminine, 
the contributions come from Lytton, Bronte, (not, how- 
ever, from Mrs. Gaskell or George Eliot), Trollope, and 
Meredith. The first three agree on the bane of enforced 
idleness, which breeds frivolity and inane restlessness. 

1 Melincourt, 17. * Ibid., 150. 



184 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

Caroline Helstone reflects bitterly on the helplessness of 
her position: ^ 

"I observe that to such grievances as society cannot readily 
cure, it usually forbids utterance, on pain of its scorn: this 
scorn being only a sort of tinselled cloak to its deformed weak- 
ness. People hate to be reminded of ills they are unwilling or 
unable to remedy: such reminder, in forcing on them a sense 
of their own incapacity, or a more painful sense of an obligation 
to make some unpleasant effort, troubles their ease and shakes 
their self-complacency. Old maids, like the homeless and un- 
employed poor, should not ask for a place and an occupation in 
the world: the demand disturbs the happy and rich: it disturbs 
parents." 

She envies Solomon's model woman, who had to arise 
early to go about her own business; and Violet Effingham 
exclaims, — ^ 

"'I wish I could be something, if it were only a stick in wait- 
ing, or a door-keeper. It is so good to be something!' 

"*A man should try to be something,' said Phineas. 

"'And a woman must be content to be nothing, — unless Mr. 
Mill can pull us through!'" 

By the late seventies, Mr. Mill, with reinforcements, 
had done something toward pulling us through; so that 
Meredith was able to satirize masculine desire to stave off 
the threatened feminism, and failure to appreciate the 
value of equality in comradeship. 

In his ideal for his first betrothed, Constantia Durham, 
Sir Willoughby is as much Man as Egoist: ^ 

1 Shirley, II, 71. TroUope speaks through Laura Kennedy and Madame 
Max Goesler, in Phineas Finn, the former of whom longs vainly to go out and 
milk the cows, while the latter complains of having only vicarious interests. 

2 Phineas Finn, III, 103. After finally accepting Lord Chiltern, she almost 
gives him up because she cannot stand his idleness. 

' The Egoist, 21. 



INSTITUTIONS I85 

"He wished for her to have come to him out of an egg shell, 
somewhat more astonished at things than a chicken, but as 
completely enclosed before he tapped the shell, and seeing him 
with her sex's eyes first of all men." 

In another of the late novels, the two abstractions, so- 
ciety and woman, are fused in one description as, — * 

«* * * ^}^g terrible aggregate social woman, of man's 
creation, hated by him, dreaded, scorned, satirized, and never- 
theless, upheld, esteemed, applauded: a mark of civilization, 
on to which our human society must hold as long as we have 
nothing humaner. She exhibits virtue, with face of waxen 
angel, with paw of desert beast, and blood of victims on it." 

This is discrimination; the general dearth of which is 
lamented by Lady Dunstane: ^ 

"The English notion of women seems to be that we are bom 
white sheep or black; circumstances have nothing to do with 
our colour. They dread to grant distinctions, and to judge of 
us discerningly is beyond them." 

And Laetitia, after listening to a long Patterne dis- 
course on feminine traits and limitations, laconically 
sums up the whole matter in a compact epigram : ^ 

"'The generic woman appears to have an extraordinary 
faculty for swallowing the individual.' " 

After this, decidedly flat and puerile falls the witticism 
of Kingsley, spoken by Bracebridge in reply to Lancelot's 

^ Lord Ormont and his Aminta, 182. 

2 Diana of the Crosszvays, 158. 

' The Egoist, 163. Cf. Simeon Strunsky's essay on The Eternal Feminine, 
in The Patient Observer; a humorous sermon which might have been developed 
from this logical text. 



l86 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

impatient question why women would "make such fools 
of themselves with clergymen": ^ 

"They are quite right. They always like the strong men — 
the fighters and the workers. In Voltaire's time they all ran 
after the philosophers. In the middle ages, books tell us, they 
worshipped the knights errant. They are always on the winning 
side, the cunning little beauties. In the war-time, when the 
soldiers had to play the world's game, the ladies all caught 
the red-coat fever; now, in these talking and thinking days 
(and be hanged to them for bores), they have the black-coat 
fever for the same reason." 

Thackeray also is guilty of the generalization not at his 
time discovered to be fallacious: ^ 

"Women won't see matters-of-fact in a matter-of-fact point 
of view, and justice, unless it is tinged with a little romance, 
gets no respect from them." 

The generosity of "Little Sister" in condoning young 
Firmin's unwise passiveness is based on "that admirable 
injustice which belongs to all good women, and for which 
let us be daily thankful." At this point the undevout 
votary burns considerable medieval incense at the femi- 
nine shrine, — not caring much if a little smoke should 
blow into his idols' eyes: ^ 

1 Yeast, no. Elsewhere in the volume the author expounds his feministic 
philosophy: "She tried, as women will, to answer him with arguments, and 
failed, as women will fail." 29. "Woman will have guidance. It is her delight 
and glory to be led." 177. 

2 The Adventures of Philip, II, 42. 

^ Ibid., I, 237. Thackeray's patronizing smugness and antique attitude 
towards women come out with a beautiful unconsciousness in a letter to one 
of them, and that one a prime favorite with him, Mrs. Brookfield: "I am afraid 
I don't respect your sex enough, though. Yes I do, when they are occupied 
with loving and sentiment rather than with other business of life." His fair 
correspondent could not retort that he would have found a congenial soul in 



INSTITUTIONS 187 

"I know, dear ladies, that you are angry at this statement. 
But, even at the risk of displeasing you, we must tell the truth. 
You would wish to represent yourselves as equitable, logical, 
and strictly just. * * * Women equitable, logical, and 
strictly just! Mercy upon us! If they were, population would 
cease, the world would be a howling wilderness." 

The apologist errs, however, in supposing that any ladies, 
— real or fictitious, his own characters or others', — are 
angry at his accusation of injustice. Helen Pendennis, 
Amelia Sedley, even Ethel Newcome and Lady Castel- 
wood, would be flattered; Becky Sharp and Beatrix Es- 
mond would not care. And as for Caroline Helstone, 
Violet Effingham, Diana Warwick, Sandra Belloni, they 
are too far away to be disturbed by either smoke or aroma. 

For half our novelists, the woman question as such did 
not exist, and about the same number show little or no in- 
terest in the world of fashion, though the two lists coin- 
cide only in part. Lytton, Thackeray, Trollope, Mere- 
dith, and in a small way, Kingsley, have grudges against 
society in addition to its treatment of women and women's 
influence on it; while Disraeli, Dickens, and Butler have 
some general gibes at social follies. 

From first to last in his near-half-century of writing, 
Lytton, himself to the manner born, loved to prick the 
social bubble. In youth he says: ^ 

"The EngHsh of the fashionable world make business an en- 
joyment, and enjoyment a business: they are born without a 
smile; they rove about public places like so many easterly winds 
— cold, sharp, and cutting; * * * while they have neg- 

Meredith's Lady Wathin, who "both dreaded and detested brains in women, 
believing them to be devilish;" but she might have reminded him of the twin- 
kling chivalry of Christopher North, who confessed, "To my aged eyes a neat 
ankle is set off attractively by a slight shade of cerulian." 
1 Pelham, 291. 



l88 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

lected all the graces and charities of artifice, they have adopted 
all its falsehood and deceit." 

Mr. Howard de Howard, rebuking a drawing room 
smart set, speaks for himself and his class: ^ 

"Gentlemen, I have sate by in silence and heard my king 
derided, and my God blasphemed; but now when you attack 
the aristocracy, I can no longer refrain from noticing so ob- 
viously intentional an insult. You have become personal." 

When young Chillingly absconds for a taste of real life, 
he leaves a letter for his father in which he promises a safe 
return, and adds, — ^ 

"I will then take my place in polite society, call upon you 
to pay all expenses, and fib on my own account to any extent 
required by that world of fiction which is peopled by illusions 
and governed by shams." 

In his first adventure, masquerading as a yeoman, he is 
quizzed by Uncle Bovill on topics for the intelligent, — 
politics, agriculture, finance. To maintain his incognito, 
he affects ignorance; and is astonished at the triumphant 
deduction, — ^ 

"Just as I thought, sir; you know nothing of these matters — 
you are a gentleman born and bred — your clothes can't dis- 
guise you, sir." 

Disraeli, whose career paralleled Lytton's in several 
ways, takes the same tone toward his own social environ- 
ment, but his deeper political earnestness led him to criti- 
cise that environment in the wider as well as narrower 
social sense. In his first real novel we find the latter 
by itself, in such touches as this: ^ 

^ Pelham, 73. ^ Kenelm Chillingly, 42. 

» Ibid., 81. * The Young Duke, 6. 



INSTITUTIONS 189 

"Always in the best set, never flirting with the wrong man, 
and never speaking to the wrong woman, all agreed that the 
Ladies Saint Maurice had fairly won their coronets." 

Again it appears in this account of the hero: ^ 

"The banquet was over: the Duke of Saint James passed 
his examination with unqualified approval; and having been 
stamped at the Mint of Fashion as a sovereign of the brightest 
die, he was flung forth, like the rest of his golden brethren, to 
corrupt the society of which he was the brightest ornament." 

The house party of the Dacres, a family of taste and 
high standards, is described negatively: ^ 

"* * * no duke who is a gourmand, no earl who is a 
jockey, no manoeuvering mother, no flirting daughters, no gamb- 
ling sons, for your entertainment, * * * As for buffoons 
and artists, to amuse a vacant hour or sketch a vacant face, we 
must frankly tell you at once that there is not one." 

But from Popanilla through the Trilogy the inanity 
and pretense of this social circle is made more pointed 
by contrast with those socially beneath it. Egremont's 
experience with the plain people induces this serious in- 
dictment of his own set: ^ 

"It is not merely that it is deficient in warmth and depth 
and breadth; that it is always discussing persons instead of 
principles, * * * it is not merely that it has neither imag- 
ination, nor fancy, nor sentiment, nor feeling, nor knowledge, 
to recommend it, but * * * it is in short, trivial, uninter- 
esting, stupid, really vulgar." 

Thackeray also speaks from within, and has to his 
credit his great roster of Snobs, his panoramic Vanity Fair, 

1 The Young Duke, 16. 2 Ibid., 86. » Sybil, 153. 



190 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

and his imposing procession of worldly, heartless, noble 
old dames. Trollope prefers country life, but his Cover- 
ings, de Courcys, Luftons, and the Duke of Omnium, show 
that he has no desire to neglect its aristocracy. Dickens, 
on the other hand, loved London and its struggling poor, 
but in the Merdles, the Veneerings, and the Dorrits redi- 
viviy he does what he can with the humors of the strug- 
gling rich. 

To Meredith the exasperating thing about polite society 
was its impoliteness, — its delight in gossip and scandal, its 
petty but venomous persecutions, and the false courtesy 
that takes refuge in conventionality. This impression ap- 
parently deepened with time, for it is glimpsed only in 
Evan Harrington and Sandra Belloni^ of the earlier books, 
but is entirely absent from none of the last half dozen. 

Butler, preoccupied with other subjects, takes time for 
only one good shot at this, but that one is so good that 
it forms a fitting climax. He mentions casually an Ere- 
whonian custom, which may be taken as symbolic of that 
country's social behavior and philosophy: ^ 

"When any one dies, the friends of the family * * * send 
little boxes filled with artificial tears, and with the name of the 
sender painted neatly upon the outside of the lid. The tears 
vary in number from two to fifteen or sixteen, according to 
the degree of intimacy or relationship; and people sometimes 
find it a nice point of etiquette to know the exact number 
which they ought to send. Strange as it may appear, this 
attention is highly valued, and its omission by those from whom 
it might be expected is keenly felt. These tears were formerly 
stuck with adhesive plaster to the cheeks of the bereaved, and 
were worn in public for a few months after the death of a rel- 
ative; they were then banished to the hat or bonnet, and are 
now no longer worn." 

1 Erewhon, 136. 



INSTITUTIONS I9I 

Whether the last clause may be viewed as a hopeful au- 
gury for the future, the author does not state. 

The step from the society of the drawing room to so- 
ciety at large, or mankind, is a refreshing passage from 
indoors, where everything is artificial, even the tears of 
bereavement, to the fresh air of common interest. The 
weather may not always be serene nor the atmosphere in- 
vigorating, but at least there is a wide horizon and a per- 
spective of some scope. It is evident that the Victorians 
enjoyed these excursions into the masculine domain of 
Government, for not one of the list forbade his mind to 
roam into its boundaries, and not one is wholly silent as 
to the impressions gained by this adventuring. Here the 
resemblance ends. Interest in public problems and The 
People varies from a minimum in Thackeray and George 
Eliot to a maximum in Peacock, Disraeli, and Butler. 
There is also great diversity in both breadth and intensity. 
Lytton, Dickens, Trollope, have several irons in the fire. 
Gaskell, Bronte, Reade, Kingsley, have but one or two, 
but the heat is none the less fervent. In some cases, in- 
deed, it is too fervent to give off the sparkle of ridicule, and 
thus falls without our province. And in some cases, while 
it is meant seriously as propaganda, it cannot be taken 
seriously as literature; for the artist is not expected to 
speak with the tongue of statesmen and economists, and 
conversely, as Dowden reminds us, "a political manifesto 
in three volumes is not a work of art." ^ 

^ Concluding his contrast between Alton Locke and Disraeli's Trilogy, in Traw 
scripts and Studies, 193. In this connection another contrast, between Disraeli 
and Mrs. Ward, is interesting, because it turns on the effect of humor. "Her 
presentment of the lighter side of English political life is accurate, and in its way 
interesting and historically valuable, but it is wholly wanting in that brilliant 
satiric touch which has made Disraeli's novels live as literature when their po- 
litical significance has utterly passed away." Traill, in The New Fiction, 44. 



192 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

Neither of these strictures applies to Peacock, who 
launches the subject for us in a pungent description of 
the good old days of Celtic antiquity: ^ 

"Political science they had none. * * * Still they went 
to work politically much as we do. The powerful took all they 
could get from their subjects and neighbors; and called some- 
thing or other sacred and glorious when they wanted the people 
to fight for them. They repressed disaffection by force, when 
it showed itself in an overt act; but they encouraged freedom 
of speech, when it was, like Hamlet's reading, 'words, words, 
words.'" 

In the same story, the episode of the decaying embank- 
ment, with its parody of Lord Canning's Defense of the 
British Constitution, and the satire on the game laws, set 
the pace for the subsequent thrusts at Toryism and the 
country squires, particularly Meredith's, whom he nat- 
urally influenced. Demagogic bamboozlement of the pub- 
lic is punctured again in the speech of Mr. Paperstamp: ^ 

"We shall make out a very good case; but you must not 
forget to call the present public distress an awful dispensation; 
a little pious cant goes a great way towards turning the thoughts 
of men from the dangerous and Jacobinical propensity of look- 
ing into moral and political causes for moral and political 
effects." 

It is in Melincourt also that the campaign of Mr. Oran 
Hautton in the Borough of Onevote starts the satiric ball 
rolling into election camps, — later pushed along by the 
authors of Pelham, T'he Newcomes^ Doctor 'Thorney Felix 
Holt^ Middlemarchy and Beauchamp^ s Career. 

Although Lytton started out as a Liberal, he ended as 
a Conservative, and furnishes some counter satire against 

* The Misfortunes of Elphin, 63 . 2 Melincourt, 165. 



INSTITUTIONS 193 

democracy. In Night and Morning he speaks of men los- 
ing their democratic enthusiasm; and in The Coming Race 
he gives proof that his is entirely lost. The family of the 
narrator are Americans, "rich and aristocratic, therefore 
disqualified for public service;" his father, defeated by 
his tailor in the race for Congress, decides on the superior 
beauty of private life. The Vrilya have a very expressive 
compound word. Koom means a profound hollow; Posh is 
a term of utter contempt; '' Koom-Posh is their name for 
the government of the many, or the ascendency of the 
most ignorant and hollow." ^ This contempt, distributed 
impartially over dishonest demagogue and gullible pub- 
lic, is nothing new. Smollett, for instance, in his Adven- 
tures of an Atoniy appreciates the art of oratory: 

"Our orator was well acquainted with all the legerdemain of 
his own language, as well as with the nature of the beast he had 
to rule. He knew when to distract its weak brain with a tumult 
of incongruous and contradictory ideas: he knew when to over- 
whelm its feeble faculty of thinking, by pouring in a torrent of 
words without any ideas annexed." 

The same Adventurer notes that the names of the two 
political parties of Japan signify respectively More Fool 
than Knave, and More Knave than Fool. It is, of course 
this aspect of democracy that leads Lowell to picture it as 
"Helpless as spilled beans on a dresser." 

Statemanship was Disraeli's whole existence, and his 
art a handmaiden to politics. More than any other nine- 
teenth century novelist he complemented destructive 
criticism by a definite constructive policy. To a contem- 
porary critic, a reforming Tory was a white blackbird; 
but our own generation, having witnessed the phenomenon 

^ The Coming Race, 8r. 



194 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

of Progressive Republicanism, has less difficulty in under- 
standing the paradox. It was not indifference to the wel- 
fare of the masses that induced Disraeli's belief in the rule 
of a selected class, but a distrust of popular ability and 
judgment, and a conviction (acknowledged in our own 
time as a truth and the real salvation of democracy) that 
efficiency can come only from expert knowledge and train- 
ing. From such a viewpoint satire would naturally be 
directed not against the people but against its incapable 
and dishonest leadership. Peacock's scorn of this ex- 
ploitation of popular ignorance and helplessness is taken 
up by both his nearest successors, expressed, as it happens, 
in a pair of portraits of the ward-politician type. 

Pelham repudiates Vincent's proposed new party be- 
cause of its bad personnel, men — ^ 

"* * * who talk much, who perform nothing — ^who join 
ignorance of every principle of legislation to indifference for 
every benefit to the people: — who are full of 'wise saws', but 
empty of 'modem instances' — who level upwards, and tram- 
ple downwards — and would only value the ability you are 
pleased to impute to me, in the exact proportion that a sports- 
man values the ferret, that burrows for his pleasure, and de- 
stroys for his interest." 

Montacute draws a more concrete and ironic picture: ^ 

"Find a man who, totally destitute of genius, possesses 
nevertheless considerable talent; who has official aptitude, a 
volubility of routine rhetoric, great perseverance, a love of af- 

^ Pelham, 210. 

^ Tancred, 73. Cf. the king's speech to Popanilla; also Gerard's observa- 
tion, — "'I have no doubt you will get through the business very well, Mr. 
Hoaxem, particularly if you be "frank and explicit"; that is the right Hne to 
take when you wish to conceal your own mind and to confuse the minds of 
others.'" Sybil, 403. 



INSTITUTIONS I95 

fairs, who, embarrassed neither by the principles of the phi- 
losopher nor by the prejudices of the bigot, can assume, with a 
cautious facility, the prevalent tone, and disembarrass himself 
of it, with a dexterous ambiguity, the moment it ceases to be 
predominant: recommending himself to the innovator by his 
approbation of change *in the abstract,' and to the conserva- 
tive by his prudential and practical respect for that which is 
established; such a man, though he be one of an essentially 
small mind, though his intellectual qualities be less than moder- 
ate, with feeble powers of thought, no imagination, contracted 
sympathies, and a most loose public morality; such a man is the 
individual whom kings and parliaments would select to govern 
the State or rule the Church." 

It is not to be supposed, however, that the people would 
choose any better than kings and parliaments; on the con- 
trary, — ^ 

"The Thirty at Athens were at least tyrants. They were 
marked men. But the obscure majority, who, under our 
present constitution, are destined to govern England, are 
as secret as a Venetian conclave. Yet on their dark voices 
all depends." 

The trend of the succeeding novelists is toward a modi- 
fied liberalism, but Meredith is the only one to satirize 
the reactionary attitude as such. The others throw the 
emphasis elsewhere. Besides, even such humanitarians as 
Dickens, Gaskell, Reade, and Kingsley, are dubious as to 
the remedial power of popular government, and seem in- 
clined toward Carlyle's view of Chartism. What Ches- 
terton says of one of them would not be untrue applied to 
the rest: ^ 

1 Sybil, 43. 

2 In his Dickens, 81. Dickens himself admits in a letter to Macready (1855) 
that he has "no present political faith or hope — not a grain." 



196 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

"All his grumblings through this book of American Notes, 
all his shrieking satire in Martin Chuzzlewit, are expressions of 
a grave and reasonable fear he had touching the future of democ- 
racy." 

But the humanitarianism itself is sounded in a harmo- 
nious chord, whose overtone is a ridicule, more grim than 
gay, of the delinquents; — those who lack the spirit of hu- 
manity, yet are the very ones, on the principle of noblesse 
oblige, m whom it should well up most abundantly. If 
they fail through that ignorance and mental limitation 
from which not even the aristocracy are always exempt, 
the blow is tempered accordingly; but it falls more 
heavily when the roots of the evil are the black ones of 
selfishness and perversity. 

Lady Lufton, for instance, is a kind soul, who would 
have made an excellent Providence, though scarcely ad- 
equate to cope with the mismanagement of the Provi- 
dence already installed over human affairs: ^ 

"She liked cheerful, quiet, well-to-do people, who loved their 
Church, their country, and their Queen, and who were not too 
anxious to make a noise in the world. She desired that all the 
farmers round her should be able to pay their rents without 
trouble, that all the old women should have warm flannel pet- 
ticoats, that the workingmen should be saved from rheumatism 
by healthy food and dry houses, that they should all be obe- 
dient to their pastors and masters — temporal as well as spiritual. 
That was her idea of loving her country. She desired also that 
the copses should be full of pheasants, the stubble-field of par- 
tridges, and the gorse covers of foxes; in that way, also, she 
loved her country." 

These are as amiable sentiments for a lady as Victor 
Radnor's for a gentleman. He is introduced as regretting 

' Framley Parsonage, 14. 



INSTITUTIONS 197 

his fall on Lx)ndon Bridge chiefly because it led to an un- 
pleasant altercation with a member of the mob.^ 

"* * * [^g found that enormous beast comprehensible 
only when it applauded him; and besides, he wished it warmly 
well; all that was good for it; plentiful dinners, country excur- 
sions, stout menagerie bars, music, a dance, and to bed; he was 
for patting, stroking, petting the mob, for tossing it sops, never 
for irritating it to show an eye-tooth, much less for causing it 
to exhibit the grinders." 

Everard Romfrey, of sterner stufi^, sees the advantage 
of tempering mercy with justice: ^ 

"To his mind the game-laws were the comer-stone of Law, and 
of a man's right to hold his own; and so delicately did he think 
the country poised, that an attack on them threatened the struc- 
ture of justice. The three conjoined Estates were therefore his 
head gamekeepers; their duty was to back him against the 
poacher, if they would not see the country tumble. * * * No 
tenants were forced to take his farms. He dragged no one by 
the collar. He gave them liberty to go to Australia, Canada, the 
Americas, if they liked. * * * g^-jj] tJ^gj-e were grumbling 
tenants. He swarmed with game, and though he was liberal, 
his hares and his birds were immensely destructive: computa- 
tion could not fix the damage done by them. Probably the farm- 
ers expected them not to eat. 'There are two parties to a bar- 
gain,' said Everard, 'and one gets the worst of it. But if he was 
never obliged to make it, where's his right to complain?' Men 
of sense rarely obtain satisfactory answers; they are provoked 
to despise their kind." 



He returns to the argument, deepened in unavoidable 
pessimism: ' 

* One of Our Conquerors, 3. ' Beauchamp's Career, 19. ' Ibid,t 28. 



198 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

"This behavior of corn-law agitators and protectors of poach- 
ers was an hypocrisy too horrible for comment. Everard 
sipped claret." 

The novels which depict the really acute phases of labor 
and poverty, — Sybil, Mary Barton, North and South, Shir- 
ley, Alton Locke, Hard Times, (diagnosed by Macaulay 
as "sullen socialism"), Put Yourself in his Place, Felix 
Holt, — are apt to have John Barton's kind of laugh, if any, 
"a low chuckle, that had no mirth in it." But the author 
of the first of these puts into another story a pungent lit- 
tle description: ^ 

"The Elysians consisted of a few thousand beautified mortals, 
the only occupation of whose existence was enjoyment; the rest 
of the population comprised some millions of Gnomes and Sylphs, 
who did nothing but work, and ensured by their labour the felic- 
ity of the superior class." 

It is inevitable that the artist and the humorist should 
find their most congenial fields in those relationships that 
are vital, and not too hampered by the technique of more 
formal and crystallized institutions. Prisons, Asylums, 
Courts, and the whole legal machinery, offer a less in- 
viting prospect than do political parties and theories, and 
the contrast between social strata. 

Yet the first third of our list, — Peacock, Lytton, Disraeli, 
and Dickens, — with the addition of Reade, Trollope, and 
Butler, did not shrink from contact with red tape. Dick- 
ens and Reade have the monopoly of the department of 
Charities and Corrections, though Lytton asserted the 
purpose of Paul Clifford to be an indictment against so- 

' The Infernal Marriage, 353. In The Young Duke there is an allusion to "the 
two thousand Brahmins who constitute the World," and to "the ten or twelve 
or fifteen millions of Pariahs for whose existence philosophers have hitherto 
failed to adduce a satisfactory cause." 132. 



INSTITUTIONS I99 

ciety's manufacture and destruction of criminals; and of 
Night and Morning to show the injustice and fallacy of its 
treatment respectively of vice and crime. In regard to the 
latter he says, in the Preface: 

"Let a child steal an apple in sport, let a starvling steal a roll 
in despair, and Law conducts them to the Prison, for evil 
communications to mellow them for the gibbet. But let a 
man spend one apprenticeship from youth to old age in vice — 
let him devote a fortune, perhaps colossal, to the wholesale de- 
moralization of his kind — and he may be surrounded with the 
adulation of the so-called virtuous, and be served upon its knee 
by that Lackey — the Modem World!" 

Dickens starts his account with the English prison in 
Pickwick^ and closes it in Little Dorrit. But it is in David 
Copperfield that he stops to point out the whole thing as 
a stupid error. On the occasion of a visit to the " immense 
and solid building, erected at a great expense," he re- 
flects, — * 

"I could not help thinking as we approached the gate, what 
an uproar would have been made in the country, if any deluded 
man had proposed to spend one half the money it had cost, on 
the erection of an industrial school for the young, or a home of 
refuge for the deserving old." 

Within, he finds the regime of solitary, unemployed con- 
finement, and the official bait for professions of penitence, 
fine breeders of hypocrisy, six years before Reade makes 
the same point in Never too Late to Mend. But he sees in 
the exhibitions of No. 27 and No. 28 — the Prize Show, the 
Crowning Glory — Lattimer, and Uriah Heep, an oppor- 
tunity for his riotious caricature; while to Reade this de- 

1 P. 430. "Yet no entering wedge of criticism was possible, in so impervious 
an object. Nobody appeared to have the least idea that there was any other 
system, but the system, to be considered." 



200 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

generation of character is a wholly serious matter. Indeed, 
Reade waxes so wroth over the cruelty, mental and physi- 
cal, practiced upon the hopeless victims that the satire 
itself is as scorching as Swift's, though of course of less 
clear a flame. 

Yet the warden Hawes, chief culprit through main re- 
sponsibility, is analyzed as after all irresponsible, on psy- 
chological and social grounds: ^ 

"Barren of mental resources, too stupid to see, far less read, 
the vast romance that lay all around him, ever>' cell a volume; 
too mindless to comprehend his own grand situation on a salient 
of the State and of human nature, and to discern the sacred and 
endless pleasures to be gathered there, this unhappy dolt, flung 
into a lofty situation by shallow blockheads, who, like himself, 
saw in a jail nothing greater or more than a 'place of punish- 
ment,' must still like his prisoners and the rest of us have some 
excitement to keep him from going dead. * * * Growth 
is the nature * * * even of an unnatural habit. * * * 
Torture had grown upon stupid, earnest Hawes; it seasoned that 
white of egg, a mindless existence." 

The satisfaction one has in seeing him finally routed and 
dismissed is enhanced by the manner of his exit. He 
is given permission to collect his belongings before depar- 
ture: — ^ 

"*I have nothing to take out of the jail, man,' replied Hawes 
rudely, 'except' — and here he did a bit of pathos and dignity — 
*my zeal for Her Majesty's serv'ice, and my integrity.' 

"'Ah,' replied Mr. Lacy, quietly, 'You won't want any help 
to carry them.'" 

Next in order comes the "Visiting Injustice," a pur- 
blind creature, who sees only what the warden points out 

1 NevfT Too LaU to Mend, 286. * Ibid., 415. 



INSTITUTIONS 20I 

to him, and comforts a tortured prisoner with pious ex- 
hortations to be patient and submit: ^ 

"Item. An occasion for twaddling had come, and this good 
soul seized it, and twaddled into a man's ear who was fainting on 
the rack." 

Later a sarcastic contrast is drawn between the dinner 
the official enjoys at home and the convict's gruel he had 
just ordered diluted.^ 

The first chaplain, well meaning and gentle, is also a 
failure, through simple inanity: ^ 

"Yet Mr. Jones was not a hypocrite nor a monster; he was 
only a commonplace man — a thing moulded by circumstances 
instead of moulding them. * * * But at the head of a strug- 
gling nation, or in the command of an army in time of war, or at 
the head of the religious department of a jail, fighting against 
human wolves, tigers, and foxes, to be commonplace is an in- 
iquity and leads to crime." 

On the enlightened officialdom that permits all this, 
Reade is one with Dickens. When an urgent appeal for 
investigation is sent to headquarters, the reply is returned 
that the inspector would reach that place in his normal 
circuit in six weeks: ^ 

"'Six weeks is not long to wait for help in a matter of life and 
death,' thought the eighty-pounders, the clerks who execute 
England." 

Most unpardonable of all are such cases as Carter, — ^ 

* Never Too Late to Mend, 360. 

* This foreshadows a similar scene in Frank Norris's Octopus. 
» Ibid., 182. 

< Ibid., 345. 

^ Ibid., 229. The antipodal point of view in Latter Day Pamphlets illustrates 
vividly the availability of satire for either side of a cause. 



202 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

"* * * half-witted, half-responsible creatures, missent 
to jail by shallow judges contentedly executing those shallow 
laws they ought to modify and stigmatise until civilization 
shall come and correct them." 

The Bench and Bar are tempting game for those who 
enjoy the absurdity of legal tricks and manners. Dis- 
raeli pursues it in the Camelopard Court, in Popanilla; 
Dickens in Pickwick^ Old Curiosity Shop, Bleak HousCy 
Our Mutual Friend^ not to mention the Circumlocution 
and Prerogative Offices; Trollope in Or/Q' Farm; and But- 
ler in Erewhon. 

Furnival, attorney for the defence, makes an eloquent 
and persuasive appeal in behalf of Lady Mason: ^ 

"And yet as he sat down he knew that she had been guilty! 
* * * and knowing that, he had been able to speak as 
though her innocence were a thing of course. That those wit- 
nesses had spoken truth he also knew, and yet he had been able 
to hold them up to the execration of all around them as though 
they had committed the worst of crimes from the foulest of mo- 
tives ! And more than this, stranger than this, worse than this, — 
when the legal world knew — as the legal world soon did know — 
that all this had been so, the legal world found no fault with Mr. 
Furnival, conceiving that he had done his duty by his client in 
a manner becoming an Enghsh barrister and an English gentle- 
man." 

Contempt for chicanery and injustice, scorn for down- 
right oppression and exploitation, are notes often sounded. 
Much more rare is an expression of sympathy for aspir- 
ing but baffled mediocrity, with its converse satire for 
those at fault. The most striking example is given by 
Trollope. An introductory chapter, with a title and a re- 
frain of Vce Victis! is devoted to this subject: ^ 

^ Orley Farm, III, 237. * The Bertrams, j. 



INSTITUTIONS 2O3 

"There is sympathy for the hungry man, but there is no sym- 
pathy for the unsuccessful man who is not hungry. If a fellow- 
mortal be ragged, humanity will subscribe to mend his clothes; 
but humanity will subscribe nothing to mend his ragged hopes 
so long as his outside coat shall be whole and decent." 

This indictment is hung on the peg of the competitive 
examination, a device satirized also by Peacock and Dick- 
ens, for being a pretentious failure. Trollope concludes 
a sarcastic exhortation to all to persevere in the mad scram- 
ble for capricious rewards, with this reflection: ^ 

"There is something very painful in these races which we Eng- 
lish are always running to one who has tenderness enough to 
think of the nine beaten horses instead of the one who has con- 
quered.'* 

When the tale of twentieth century satire shall be told, 
considerable space will have to be devoted to Militarism 
versus Pacifism. But the Victorians lived, if not in piping 
times of peace, at least in a time reasonably peaceful, for 
their island heard little but echoes of the European cannon; 
a condition which tended to keep men's minds at home and 
occupied with internal affairs. The satirists therefore 
have little to say about war. Peacock unveils the policy 
of launching a foreign war in order to smother discontent 
over domestic troubles. In such stories as Shirley y Silas- 
Marner, and others located in or soon after the Napoleonic 
Era, are scattered parenthetical remarks; as for instance 
the opening scene of ^n Amazing Marriage, "when 
crowned heads were running over Europe, crying out for 
charity's sake to be amused after their tiresome work of 
slaughter; and you know what a dread they have of mo- 
ping." In Disraeli's Ixion, Mars is not popular in Olym- 

^The Bertrams, 8. 



204 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

plan circles, being despised as " a brute, more a bully than 
a hero. Not at all in the best set." Accordingly, since, 
as we are reminded by Phillips in his Modern Europe^ 
" the British lion, turned ruminant, had been browsing in 
the pleasant pastures of peace to the melodious piping of 
Bright and Cobden," and since it had, when required, the 
less melodious taunting of Carlyle, it needed at this time 
no Aristophanes or Swift to mock at the madness of mili- 
tarism. 

In organized religion we see a paradoxical and yet natu- 
ral enough operation of mortal psychology. In its primi- 
tive origin it sprang from two opposite sources, human in- 
nocence and human craft. In his innocence man believed 
that his immortal life must put on mortality, become in- 
carnate in architecture, creed, ritual, before it could be 
lived. And in his craft he discovered that the incorrupti- 
ble could be made to put on corruption, — to the great ad- 
vantage of an entirely terrestrial ambition. These two 
factors, conjoined with the ubiquitous impulse to social- 
ize feelings and thoughts as well as actions, have suc- 
ceeded in so clothing and housing the wistful spirit which 
for itself asks no more than an assurance of some divinity 
dwelling without or within us, that its elaborate trappings 
and conspicuous paraphernalia have become shining marks 
for those who see the possible absurdity in this material- 
izing of the spiritual. 

Until recently, however, few shafts have penetrated to 
the heart of the discrepancy. Most of them have been 
aimed at the broad and inviting surface of obvious in- 
consistencies: indulgence in "material luxury on the part 
of an institution founded to further the spiritual life; dom- 
inance of authority in a realm that should be free; flour- 
ishing of bigotry, greed, cruelty, hypocrisy, in the exclu- 



INSTITUTIONS 205 

sive garden of all the virtues; unlovely partisan disputes 
and recriminations in connection with the one thing that 
best can symbolize the brotherhood of man. 

The distinction must here be made between the official 
representatives of the Church as such representatives, and 
as mere human beings. In this discussion therefore cler- 
gymen are not cited as cases in point unless they are 
clearly meant by their authors to be taken as clergy and 
not as men. 

The Chadband of Dickens, for instance, and the Bute 
Crawley and Charles Honeyman of Thackeray, stand 
on their own feet, and share the common lot of satirized 
humanity; neither of these novelists having an arrow from 
his full quiver for the Church itself. Nor has Mrs. Gaskell, 
though her North and South hinges on the tragedy of Mr. 
Dale, an Anglican minister turned Dissenter. George 
Eliot spares likewise the Institution she had herself out- 
grown. Her Clerical Lives, her Reverends Irwine and 
Lyon, such diverse types as the modest Dinah Morris and 
the dominating Savonarola, are treated sympathetically, 
as is also the pitiful fanaticism of Lantern Yard. Lytton 
and Reade too grant the consent implied in silence. But 
other half speak out, briefly or at length. 

Peacock is most impressed with the uselessness of an in- 
stitution which seems to exist for the gratification of its 
dignitaries. The candid Mr. Sarcastic, after horrifying 
Miss Pennylove on the question of auctioning off brides, 
proceeds in his frank career: ^ 

"I irreparably offended the Reverend Dr. Vorax by telling 
him, that having a nephew, whom I wished to shine in the church, 
I was on the lookout for a luminous butler, and a cook of solid 

^ Melincourt, II, lo. Cf. some other clerical cognomens, Gaster, Grovelgrub; 
and the way in which they were lived up to. 



206 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

capacity, under whose joint tuition he might graduate. 'Who 
knows,' said I, 'but he may immortalize himself at the Univer- 
sity, by giving his name to a pudding?'" 

In his medieval tale he takes up the Church as an insti- 
tution, with his favorite, back-handed, historical thrust. 
The Saxons, it seems, had attacked the Bangor monastery 
and killed twelve hundred monks: ^ 

"This was the first overt act in which the Saxons set forth 
their new sense of a religion of peace. It is alleged, indeed, that 
these twelve hundred monks supported themselves by the la- 
bour of their own hands. If they did so, it was, no doubt, a gross 
heresy; but whether it deserved the castigation it received from 
Saint Augustin's proselytes, may be a question in polemics. 
* * * The rabble of Britons must have seen little more than 
the superficial facts that the lands, revenues, privileges, and so 
forth, which once belonged to Druids and so forth, now belonged 
to abbots, bishops, and so forth, who, like their extruded precurs- 
ors, walked occasionally in a row, chanting unintelligible words, 
and never speaking in common language but to exhort the people 
to fight; having, indeed, better notions than their predecessors of 
building, apparel, and cookery; and a better knowledge of the 
means of obtaining good wine, and of the final purpose for which 
it was made." 

To such as this we have Thackeray's counter-blast, with 
admonition, — ^ 

"And don't let us give way to the vulgar prejudice that cler- 
gyman are an overpaid and luxurious body of men. * * * 
From reading the works of some modern writers of repute, you 
would fancy that a parson's life was passed in gorging himself 
with plum-pudding and port wine; and that his Reverence's fat 
chaps were always greasy with the crackling of tithe pigs. Cari- 

1 The Misfortunes of Elphin, 65. There is a similar hit through Friar Tuck, 
in Maid Marian, 30. 

^ Book of Snobs, 232. 



INSTITUTIONS 20/ 

caturists delight to represent him so: round, short-necked, pim- 
ple-faced, apoplectic, bursting out of waistcoat like a black-pud- 
ding, a shovel-hatted fuzz-wigged Silenus." 

Whereas, he goes on at length to show, the reverse is the 
case. Both sides are more or less illustrative of the argu- 
ment ad hominem. 

It is Trollope who really writes of Clerical Snobs. The 
house-party at Chalicotes shelters a hierarchy. Mr. Rob- 
arts arrives, — ^ 

"And then the vicar shook hands with Mrs. Proudie, in that 
deferential manner which is due from a vicar to his bishop's 
wife; and Mrs. Proudie returned the greeting with all that smil- 
ing condescension which a bishop's wife should show to a vicar." 

From here the "young, flattered fool of a parson" is per- 
suaded to go to Gatherum Castle and there gets into trou- 
ble. Brought to his senses, he meditates ruefully, — ^ 

"Why had he come to this horrid place? Had he not every- 
thing at home which the heart of man could desire? No; the 
heart of man can desire deaneries — the heart, that is, of the man 
vicar; and the heart of the man dean can desire bishoprics; and 
before the eyes of the man bishop does there not loom the trans- 
cendental glory of Lambeth?" 

The mixture of affectionate indulgence, shrewd amuse- 
ment, and fundamental loyalty which made up Trollope*s 
attitude is recorded in this symbolic portrait: ^ 

"As the archdeacon stood up to make his speech, erect in the 
middle of that little square, he looked like an ecclesiastical 

1 Framley Parsonage, 23. On another occasion we are told that "Mrs. Prou- 
die's manner might have showed to a very close observer that she knew the 
difference between a bishop and an archdeacon." 

^Ibid., 86. 

* The Warden, 50. 



208 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

Statue placed there, as a fitting impersonation of the church 
militant here on earth; his shovel-hat, large, new, and well-pro- 
nounced, a churchman's hat in every inch, declared the profes- 
sion as plainly as does the Quaker's broad brim; his heavy eye- 
brows, large, open eyes, and full mouth and chin expressed the 
solidity of his order; the broad chest, amply covered with fine 
cloth, told how well to do was its estate; one hand ensconced 
within his pocket evinced the practical hold which our mother 
church keeps on her temporal possessions; and the other, loose 
for action, was ready to fight, if need be, in her defense; and, be- 
low these, the decorous breeches, and neat black gaiters showing 
so admirably that well-turned leg, betokened the stability, the 
decency, the outward beauty and grace of our church establish- 
ment." 

It is naturally in the Cathedral Series that clerical mat- 
ters most abound, but they appear in other volumes, es- 
pecially 'T'he Bertrams. Caroline Waddington, speaking 
of vicars, makes an empiric induction: ^ 

"I judge by what I see. They are generally fond of eating, 
very cautious about their money, untidy in their own houses, 
and apt to go to sleep after dinner." 

George Bertram, author of 'The Romance of Scripture, 
and T^he Fallacies of Early //zV/ory, exponents of the Higher 
Criticism, over which "there was a comfortable row at 
Oxford," discusses religion with his cousin the curate. 
The attitude of prayer, he says, is beautiful from the com- 
munion it symbolizes. But imagine the attitude with no 
such communion, — ^ 

" You will at once run down the whole gamut of humanity 
from Saint Paul to Pecksniff." 

As to the practicability of freedom of thought, the 
churchman argues, — 

1 The Bertrams, 114. ^ Ibid., 303. 



INSTITUTIONS 209 

"If every man and every child is to select, how shall we ever 
have a creed? and if no creed, how shall we have a church?" 

And the layman concludes for him, — 

"And if no church, how then parsons? Follow it on, and it 
comes to that. But, in truth, you require too much, and so you 
get — nothing." 

An ingenuous young girl in another story inquires, — ^ 

***** what is all religion but washing black sheep white; 
making the black a little less black, scraping a spot white here 
and there?" 

Whoever may be meant by Thackeray as "gross cari- 
caturists," it cannot be Trollope, for even Mr. Slope is less 
repulsive than the alleged portraiture, and the Epicureans 
are models of refinement, and treated with a corresponding 
delicacy. Dr. Stanhope, sinecurist and pastor in absentia^ 
had the appearance of "a benevolent, sleepy old lion." 
Like the rector at Clavering, and the Barchester arch- 
deacon (who kept his jolly old volume of Rabelais locked 
in his study desk, but brought it out in the security of sol- 
itude as an antidote for the tedium of sermon-writing), he 
had a taste for "romances and poetry of the lightest and 
not always the most moral description." And like Dr. 
Grant, in Mansfield Parky — ^ 

"He was thoroughly a bon vivant. * * * He had much to 
forgive in his own family, * * * and had forgiven every- 
thing — except inattention to his dinner. * * * That he had 
religious convictions must be believed; but he rarely obtruded 
them, even on his children." 

The dignified bishop, on hearing a startling piece of 
news, — ^ 

^ Sir Harry Hotspur, 93. * Barchester Tower Sy 77. 

' The Warden, 32. 



2IO SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

"* * * did not whistle. We believe that they lose the 
power of doing so on being consecrate; and that in these days 
we might as easily meet a corrupt judge as a whistling bishop." 

The subject of foreign missions is glanced at in a con- 
versation between Sowerby and Harold Smith; but on the 
the whole it is another neglected topic. Disraeli observes 
in Sybil that a missionary from Tahiti might be spared for 
needed work in Wodgate, England. The rest in silence, 
until Butler, post-Victorian, exposes, with some of his 
choicest irony, the fallacy that underlies all proselyting 
logic. 

Bronte and Kingsley are openly partisan, with a strain 
of the crudeness inseparable from antagonistic warmth. 
They are also on the same side,^ the broad-church posi- 
tion, opposed to Tractarian principles as much as to 
Catholicism itself. 

The real acid of the first chapter of Shirley^ entitled 
Levitical, and promising only "cold lentils and vinegar 
without oil," is not poured upon the heads of the three 
curates and the rector, failures though they all were as 
spiritual shepherds, but upon the contemporary situation. 
In 1812, the author says, there was no Pastoral Aid nor 
Additional Curates Society to help out rectors: ^ 

"The present successors of the apostles, disciples of Dr. Pusey 
and tools of the Propaganda, were at that time being hatched 
under cradle-blankets, or undergoing regeneration by nursery- 
baptism in wash-hand-basins. You could not have guessed by 
looking at any one of them that the Italian-ironed double 
frills of its net cap surrounded the brows of a pre-ordained spe- 
cially sanctified successor of Saint Paul, Saint Peter or Saint 

1 Although Kingsley threw Shirley aside because the opening seemed to 
him vulgar. Harriet Martineau said the same of Villette. 

2 Shirley f I, 2. 



I NSTITUTI ON S 211 

John; nor could you have foreseen in the folds of its long night- 
gown the white surplice in which it was hereafter cruelly to ex- 
ercise the souls of its parishioners, and strangely to non-plus 
its old-fashioned vicar by flourishing aloft in a pulpit the shirt- 
like raiment which had never before waved higher than the 
reading-desk." 

"Yet even then,** she adds, "the rare but precious plant 
existed — three rods of Aaron blossomed within a circuit 
of twenty miles." Their clerical functions are summed up 
later by the gardener William: ^ 

"They're alius magnifying their office: it is a pity but their 
office could magnify them; but it does nought o' t' soart." 

The autobiographical heroine of Villette recounts her 
experience of being subjected to persuasive priestly ex- 
hortation, and ironically repeats the phrases: ^ 

"I half realized myself in that condition also; passed under 
discipline, moulded, trained, inoculated, and so on." 

She is enabled to resist, because, 

"* * * there was a hoUowness within, and a flourish 
around 'Holy Church' which tempted me but moderately." 

She discusses at length a Papist pamphlet left on her 
desk for her perusal: ^ 

"The voice of that sly little book was a honeyed voice; its ac- 
cents were all unction and balm. Here roared no utterance of 
Rome's thunders, no blasting of the breath of her displeasure. 
* * * Far be it from her to threaten or to coerce; her wish 
was to guide and win. SA^ persecute? Oh dear no! not on any 
account! * * * It was a canting, sentimental, shallow 
little book, yet * * * j ^^s amused with the gambols 

1 Shirley, I, 355. « f^U^tte, II, 186. ' Filleite, II, 210-I1. 



212 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

of this unlicked wolf-cub muffled in the fleece, and mimicking 
the bleat of a guileless lamb. Portions of it reminded me of cer- 
tain Wesleyan Methodist tracts I had once read when a child; 
they were flavoured with about the same seasoning of excitation 
to fanaticism. * * * I smiled then over this dose of maternal 
tenderness, coming from the ruddy old lady of the Seven Hills; 
smiled, too, at my own disinclination, not to say disability, to 
meet their melting favours." 

As her reason is not swayed by the arguments of the 
"Moloch Church," neither is her fancy kindled by its rit- 
ual: ^ 

"Neither full procession nor high mass, nor swarming tapers, 
nor swinging censers, nor ecclesiastical millinery, nor celes- 
tial jewelry, touched my imagination a whit. What I saw struck 
me as tawdry, not grand; as grossly material, not poetically 
spiritual." 

Kingsley widens his criticism from the personal to the 
social point of view. He objects to luxury not so much 
because it shows up the luxurious as because it takes away 
even the necessities from those who have not, to add yet 
more luxuries to those that have. He questions — ^ 

"* * * how a really pious and universally respected arch- 
bishop, living within a quarter of a mile of one of the worst in- 
fernos of destitution, disease, filth, and profligacy — can yet find 
it in his heart to save £120,000 out of church revenues, and leave 
it to his family; * * * how Irish bishops can reconcile it 
to their consciences to leave behind them, one and all, large for- 
tunes * * * taken from the pockets of a Roman Catholic 
population, whom they have been put there to convert to Prot- 
estantism for the last three hundred years — ^with what success, 
all the world knows." 

» yUleiU, II, 220. ' ^Uon Locke^ 186. 



INSTITUTIONS 2I3 

Moreover, because he sees in the church a possible van- 
guard to civilization, he rebels against its retrogressive and 
obstructive policy. He laments that the working men do 
not trust the clergy: ^ 

"They suspect them to be mere tubs to the whale — mere sub- 
stitutes for education, slowly and late adopted, in order to stop 
the mouths of the importunate. They may misjudge the clergy; 
but whose fault is it if they do? * * * Every spiritual re- 
form since the time of John Wesley, has had to establish itself 
in the teeth of insult, calumny, and persecution. Every eccle- 
siastical reform comes not from within, but from without your 
body. Everywhere we see the clergy, * * * proclaiming 
themselves the advocates of Toryism, * * * chosen ex- 
clusively from the classes which crush us down; * * * com- 
manding us to swallow down, with faith as passive and implicit 
as that of a Papist, the very creeds from which their own bad 
example, and their scandalous neglect, have * * * alien- 
ated us; * * * betraying in every tract, in every sermon, 
an ignorance of the doubts, the feelings, the very language of the 
masses, which would be ludicrous, were it not accursed before 
God and man." 

Meredith expresses the same idea, with the difference 
that he does not speak apologetically from within, but with 
the unqualified disapproval of the outsider. Jenny Den- 
ham, an incisive and thoughtful woman, says,^ 

^ Alton Locke, 229-30. Cf. 205fF. for an equally forceful presentation of the 
other side through the eloquent rebuke to illogical complaints, given by Eleanor 
Staunton. It is in Yeast that Papacy is satirized, a typical hit being the un- 
conscious irony of Vieuxbois' assertion, — "*I do not think that we have any 
right in the nineteenth century to contest an opinion which the fathers of the 
Church gave in the fourth." 114. Alton Locke also says, — "A man-servant, 
a soldier and a Jesuit, are to me the three great wonders of humanity — three 
forms of moral suicide, for which I never had the slightest gleam of sympathy, 
or even comprehension." 187. 

' Beauchanp's Career, 6zz. 



214 SATIRE INTHE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

"My experience of the priest in our country is, that he has 
abandoned — he's dead against the only cause that can justify 
and keep up a Church; the cause of the poor — the people. He is 
a creature of the moneyed class. I look on him as a pretender." 

In his subtle way Meredith satirizes the Catholic Church 
by having the Countess de Saldar take refuge in and ap- 
prove of it. Its great asset is that its democracy includes 
even tailors. That it is the only true spiritual home for 
a true gentleman she proves by citing an example. A no- 
ble knight does not hesitate at telling a flat falsehood to 
save a lady, being safe in morality because "his priest was 
handy." Her nature is defined as the truly religious, that 
is, one with need of vicarious strength and a sense of re- 
newed absolution. Another exponent is Constance Asper, 
in Diana of the Cross ways, whose boudoir was filled with 
expensive Catholic equipments, affording "every invita- 
tion to meditate in luxury on an ascetic religiousness." 

Butler was not content to view the Church from his ex- 
ternal position with the silence of George Eliot or the cas- 
ual comments of Meredith. The intensity of his icono- 
clasm demanded full expression, — kept, however, from 
crudeness by his ironic finish, and from injustice by his 
fundamental reasonableness. In Erewhon his chief point 
is the perfunctory character of established religion. The 
Erewhonians have two distinct economic currencies, one 
of which is supposed to be the system, and is patronized 
by all who wished to be considered respectable. Yet its 
funds have no direct value in the community, whose actual 
business is conducted on the other commercial system. 
The Musical Banks excel in architecture, and keep up a 
routine of receiving and paying checks. But their patrons 
are for the most part ladies and some students from the 
College of Unreason. Mrs. Nosnibor, a staunch share- 



IN STITUTION S 215 

holder, deplores this apparent lack of public interest, and 
remarks that it is "indeed melancholy to see what little 
heed people paid to the most precious of all institutions." 
Her guest observes, — ^ 

"I could say nothing in reply, but I have ever been of opin- 
ion that the greater part of mankind do approximately know 
where they get that which does them good." 

The Musical Bankers not only protest too much as to 
the ascendancy of their institution, but consistently de- 
preciate the other: ^ 

"Even those who to my certain knowledge kept only just 
enough money at the Musical Banks to swear by, would call the 
other banks (where their securities really lay) cold, deadening, 
paralyzing, and the like." 

As to the cashiers and managers, — ^ 

" Few people would speak quite openly and freely before them, 
which struck me as a very bad sign. * * * Xhe less thought- 
ful of them did not seem particularly unhappy, but many were 
plainly sick at heart, though perhaps they hardly knew it, and 
would not have owned to being so. Some few were opponents 
of the whole system; but these were liable to be dismissed from 
their employment at any moment, and this rendered them very 
careful, for a man who had once been a cashier at a Musical 
Bank was out of the field for other employment, and was gen- 

^ Erezvhon 151. 

' Ibid., 157. Cf. Kingsley's statement that the working men distrust the clergy. 
In The Way of All Flesh, Butler observes, "A clergyman, again, can hardly 
ever allow himself to look facts fairly in the face." 103. Cf. also his Note Books, 
"In a way the preachers believe what they preach, but it is as men who have 
taken a bad ten pound note and refuse to look at the evidence that makes for 
its badness, though, if the note were not theirs, they would see at a glance that 
it was not a good one. " 190. 



2l6 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

erally unfitted for it by reason of that course of treatment which 
was commonly called his education." 

Erewhon Revisited deals more specifically with the mi- 
raculous and doctrinal side of Christianity, mirrored in the 
account of the origin of Sunchildism and its connection 
with the old Musical Banks. The two main characters 
are Hanky and Panky, Professors respectively of Wordly 
and Unworldly Wisdom. They are carefully distin- 
guished: * 

" Panky was the greater humbug of the two, for he would 
humbug even himself — a thing, by the way, not very hard to do; 
and yet he was the less successful humbug; * * * Hanky 
was the mere common, superficial, perfunctory Professor, who, 
being a Professor, would of course profess, but would not lie 
more than was in the bond. * * * Panky, on the other 
hand, was hardly human; he had thrown himself so earnestly 
into his work, that he had become a living lie. If he had had to 
play the part of Othello he would have blacked himself all over, 
and very likely have smothered his Desdemona in good earnest. 
Hanky would hardly have blacked himself behind the ears, 
and his Desdemona would have been quite safe." 

The School is another favorite satirical topic. The only 
novelists who refrain from depicting the shortcomings of 
the educational system are Disraeli, Reade, Mrs. Gaskell, 
and George Eliot. On the public side, Meredith might be 
added, as the theme oi Richard Feverel, though educational, 
is made an individual matter. 

The adverse opinion handed down on the methods and 

* Erewhon Revisited, 39-40. Panky, who wore his Sunchild suit backward, as a 
matter of dogma, is supposed to represent the Anglican, and Hanky the Jesuit. 
The broad church is represented by the far superior Dr. Downie. Butler's 
positive philosophy is expressed, though still in the indirect manner, in the 
account of Ydgrun and the Ydgrunites: Erewhon, Chap. XVII. 



INSTITUTIONS 217 

results of the prevailing system is more unanimous than 
is the case with other subjects. On the main indictments, 
inefficiency and cruelty in the lower schools, and ineffi- 
ciency and carelessness in the higher, there is no minority 
report. On the whole, the Victorians were innocent of 
the partisanship that arose later over the great question 
of Culture versus Efficiency as an educational ideal. The 
primary stages might be allowed a modicum of the prac- 
tical, though Gradgrind's "facts" are failures, and Squeers 
stands in solitary glory as an advocate of applied arts and 
manual training. Mr. Tulliver is in line with his Zeitgeist 
in fondly supposing the best thing he can do for Tom is to 
send him to an expensive private school, to learn Latin 
along with the son of Lawyer Wakem. An education was 
tacitly defined as that which makes a gentleman of you. 
And though no one would dissent from Thackeray's dictum 
that "all the world is improving except the gentlemen," 
neither would any one suppose that the definition might 
be modified or expanded. 

A number realize that education begins at home. The 
close father and son relationship satirized in the case of 
Sir Austin and Richard because it was too close and inflex- 
ible, is presented as a beautiful ideal in those of Pisistratus 
and Mr. Caxton, Kenelm and Squire Chillingly, Clive and 
Colonel Newcome, and the Duke of Omnium and his 
sons.^ 

In David Copperfield's recollections of the metallic 
Murdstone, Arthur Clennam's of his childhood's Sab- 
bath and Alton Locke's of his mother's fearful bigotry, 
we get glimpses into the pathos of the old Puritan disci- 

* In The Duke's Children. Cf. The Small House at Allington^ 498, for re- 
marks on inadequate parents. Perhaps Meredith's picture in lighter tones, of 
Harry Richmond and his irresponsible but aspiring father, might be mentioned. 



2l8 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

pline. These are too sad for satire. Butler, no less sad, is 
also angry enough to brand it with his caustic wit. Theo- 
bald and Christina Pontifex are texts for a satiric sermon 
on parental incompetence, no less disastrous although 
"All was done in love, anxiety, timidity, stupidity, and 
impatience." After the scene in which Theobald, having 
punished little Ernest severely and quite wantonly, rang 
the bell for prayers, "red-handed as he was," his visitor 
reflects that perhaps it was fortunate for his host — ^ 

"* * * that our prayers were seldom marked by any very 
encouraging degree of response, for if I had thought there was 
the slightest chance of my being heard I should have prayed 
that some one might ere long treat him as he had treated 
Ernest." 

The keynote of this most Christian system is uncon- 
sciously hit upon by the bewildered little lad himself, who 
later concludes, — ^ 

"* * * ^i^g^ i^g Y\nd duties towards everybody, lying in 
wait for him upon every side, but that nobody had any duties 
towards him." 

Formal education naturally falls into the school and col- 
lege divisions. We have the former presented dramati- 
cally by Bronte in Jane Eyre (and more impressionisti- 
cally in Villette)^ by Thackeray in The Fatal Boots and 
Vanity Fair, by Butler in 'The Way of All Flesh, and by the 
zealous specialist in that field. It has been counted up that 
Dickens deals with twenty-eight schools and mentions a 
dozen others.^ The most important are in Nicholas Nic- 
lebyy Dombey and Son, David Copperfield, and Hard Times. 

1 Way of All Flesh, 98. 

"^Ibid.y 125. 

^ By J. L. Hughes, in Dickens as an Educator, 



INSTITUTIONS I19 

Major Bagstock is contemplating young Rob, a prod- 
uct of that school where they never taught honor, but 
were "particularly strong in the engendering of hypoc- 
risy," and deduces that "it never pays to educate that 
sort of people." Whereupon — ^ 

"The simple father was beginning to submit that he hoped 
his son, the quondam Grinder, huffed and cuffed, and flogged 
and badged, and taught, as parrots are, by a brute jobbed into 
his place of schoolmaster with as much fitness for it as a hound, 
might not have been educated on quite a right plan in some un- 
discovered respect, when Mr. Dombey, angrily repeating 'The 
usual return!' led the major away." 

Young David Copperfield profits little by losing Murd- 
stone and gaining Creakle. The aspect of this pleasant 
pedagogue so fascinates the gaze of the boys that they 
cannot keep to their books. When a culprit is called be- 
fore the tribunal, — ^ 

"Mr. Creakle cuts a joke before he beats him, and we laugh 
at it, — miserable little dogs, we laugh, with our visages as white 
as ashes, and our hearts sinking into our boots. * * * 
Miserable little propitiators of a remorseless Idol, how abject 
we were to him! What a launch in life I think it now, on looking 
back, to be so mean and servile to a man of such parts and pre- 
tensions!" 

From this infant purgatory the step to the college 
seems a long one, for that is by comparison an Elysium, 
however inane and frivolous. Those whose satiric arrows 
speed thither are Peacock, Lytton, TroUope, Kingsley, 
and Butler. Thackeray should be mentioned for his two 
chapters on University Snobs, and the preceding one on 

^ Dombey and Son, II, 313. * David Copperfield, I, 92. 



220 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

Clerical Snobs, in which he describes the colleges as the 
last strongholds of Feudalism; concluding — ^ 

"Why is the poor College servitor to wear that name and that 
badge still ? Because Universities are the last places into which 
Reform penetrates. But now that she can go to College and 
back for five shillings, let her travel down thither." 

Squire Headlong inquires in vain at Oxford for "men 
of taste and philosophers." Scythrop and Sir Telegraph 
were both cured at college of their love for learning. Des- 
mond describes the university system as a "deep-laid con- 
spiracy against the human understanding, * * * a 
ridiculous and mischievous farce." But Dr. Folliott re- 
fused to succumb. Alluding to some one who cannot quote 
Greek, he adds, — ^ 

"But I think he must have finished his education at some 
very rigid college, where a quotation, or any other overt act 
showing acquaintance with classical literature, was visited with 
a severe penalty. For my part, I made it my boast that I was 
not to be so subdued. I could not be abated of a single quota- 
tion by all the bumpers in which I was fined." 

The same critic says elsewhere of the curriculum: ' 

"Everything for everybody, science for all, schools for all, 
rhetoric for all, law for all, physic for all, words for all, and sense 
for none." 

Pelham testifies that at Eton he was never taught a syl- 
lable of English literature, laws, or history; and was 
laughed at for reading Pope out of school. On his gradua- 
tion from Cambridge, a place that "reeked with vulgar- 

^ Cf. the beginning of same chapter for the school system generally. 

* Crochet Castle, 115. 

* Ibid., 32. 



INSTITUTIONS 221 

ity," he is congratulated by his tutor for having been passa- 
bly decent. Whereupon he observes, — ^ 

"Thus closed my academical career. He who does not allow 
that it passed creditably to my teachers, profitably to myself, 
and beneficially to the world, is a narrow-minded and illiterate 
man, who knows nothing of the advantages of modem educa- 
tion." 

Trollope in The Bertrams, and Kingsley in Yeast and 
Alton Locke, have a few words for the subject, but add no 
new idea, except that Alton voices the disgust of the stu- 
dents themselves with their Alma Mater. It is this same 
young neophyte who is advised by Dean Winnstay to go 
to some such college as St. Mark's, which "might, by its 
strong Church principles, give the best antidote to any 
little remaining taint of sans-culottism." 

In Butler's Erewhonian Colleges of Unreason the lead- 
ing subject is Hypothetics, and the most honored Chairs 
are those of Inconsistency and Evasion, both required 
courses. Genius and originality are resolutely discour- 
aged, it being a man's business "to think as his neighbors 
do, for Heaven help him if he thinks good what they count 
bad." These Erewhonian professors, by the way, might 
have adduced as evidence the well-known, horrified ex- 
clamation of Mary Shelley at the suggestion that her son 

^ Pelham, 13. Cf. his Kenelm Chillingly for a discussion between Uncle John, 
the idealistic vicar and Mivers, the utilitarian man of the world, as to educa- 
tional values. The latter believes the parson's regime would produce "either 
a pigeon or a ring-dove, a credulous booby or a sentimental milk-sop." The 
former makes a thoughtful distinction between the public school, which ripens 
talent but stifles genius, and the private, which is too enervating, making of 
the boys either prigs or sissies. It is Mivers who advocates adapting the style 
of education to the disposition of the individual; and insuring development by 
putting the youthful mind in contact with the most original and innovating 
thinkers of the day. 



222 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

be sent where he would be taught to think for himself. By- 
refusing to " think Hke other people," a man may become a 
poet and even a beautiful, ineffectual angel, but he cannot 
lead a comfortable nor a really effectual life. The prob- 
lem as to who may safely be intrusted to lead public opin- 
ion, and who are safest as followers, is an intricate one, 
but it is certainly true that a sane and modest agnosticism 
is not necessarily synonymous with "the art of sitting 
gracefully on a fence," which Butler concludes was brought 
to its greatest perfection in the Colleges of Unreason. 

On the subjects of Literature and the Press too much has 
been said to be ignored, but not much of any great conse- 
quence. Trollope took Journalism as a satiric province, 
with some little aid from Meredith. He also takes a shot, 
not too well aimed, at the current humanitarian fiction 
which purposes to set the world right in shilling num- 
bers. He adds, — ^ 

"Of all such reformers, Mr. Sentiment is the most powerful. 
It is incredible the number of evil practices he has put down. It 
is to be feared he will soon lack subjects, and that when he has 
made the working classes comfortable, and got bitter beer put 
into proper sized pint bottles, there will be nothing left for him 
to do. Mr. Sentiment is certainly a very powerful man, and per- 
haps not the less so that his good poor people are so very good; 
his hard rich people so very hard, and the genuinely honest so 
very honest. * * * Divine peeresses are no longer interest- 
ing, though possessed of every virtue; but a pattern peasant or 
an immaculate manufacturing hero may talk as much twaddle 
as one of Mrs. RatclifFe's heroines, and still be listened to." 

A favorite theme, especially among the earlier writers, 
is the pose of pessimism, alien to the self-satisfied opti- 

^ The Warden, 151. This is really more unjust to Dickens than the flings 
at Dr. Pessimist Anti-cant are to Carlyle. It is interesting to note that the 
very measure meted to Lytton by Dickens is measured to him by Trollope. 



INSTITUTIONS 223 

mistic spirit which prevailed with little opposition — except 
from James Thompson and Matthew Arnold — from By- 
ron to Hardy. 

The Honorable Mr. Listless finds the volumes of mod- 
ern literature "very consolatory and congenial" to his 
feelings: * 

"There is, as it were, a delightful north-east wind, an intel- 
lectual blight breathing through them; a delicious misanthropy 
and discontent, that demonstrates the nullity of virtue and en- 
ergy, and puts me in good humour with myself and sofa." 

Pelham perceives — ^ 

"* * * an unaccountable prepossession among all persons, 
to imagine that whatever seems gloomy must be profound, 
and whatever is cheerful must be shallow. They have put poor 
Philosophy into deep mourning, and given her a coffin for a writ- 
ing desk, and a skull for an inkstand." 

Ganymede anticipates that Apollo's new poem will be 
very popular, for "it is all about moonlight and the misery 
of existence." ^ 

It is in Meredith that we find the greatest point and 
depth in literary criticism, as in most other things. Under 
cover of apology for his own method of psychological anal- 
ysis, he manages to convey his impression of those who 
tell and who love the story for the story's sake. He can- 
not avoid, he explains, the slow start and detailed exposi- 
tion in which he unfolds the situation, and adds: ^ 

"This it is not necessary to do when you are set astride the 
enchanted horse of the Tale, which leaves the man's mind at 
home while he performs the deeds befitting him: he can indeed 

^ Nightmare Abbey, 50. * Ixion, 282. 

* Pelham, 301. * One of Our Conquerors, 10. 



224 oATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

be rapid. Whether more active, is a question asking for your 
notions of the governing element in the composition of man, and 
of his present business here. * * * ^11 ill-fortuned min- 
strel who has by fateful direction been brought to see with dis- 
tinctness that man is not as much comprised in external features 
as the monkey, will be devoted to the task of the fuller por- 
traiture." 

It is Meredith also who says the last word on the Eng- 
lish, as English. They are indeed the real objects under 
all these disguises of their activities, but they are not often 
synthesized and called by name. Yet — ^ 

" An actually satiric man in an English circle, that does not 
resort to the fist for a reply to him, may almost satiate the 
excessive fury roused in his mind by an illogical people of a 
provocative prosperity, * * * They give him so many 
opportunities." 

He seizes one of them by symbolizing England in the 
Duvidney sisters; composed of such, it becomes — ^ 

«<* * * 2 vast body of passives and negatives, living by 
precept, according to rules of precedent, and supposing them- 
selves to be righteously guided because of their continuing un- 
disturbed. * * * mixed with an ancient Hebrew fear of 
offense to an inscrutable Lord, eccentrically appeasable through 
the dreary iteration of the litany of sinfulness. * * * g^^., 
irists in their fervours might be near it to grasp it, if they could 
be moved to moral distinctness, mental intention, with a prefer- 
ence of strong plain speech over the crack of their whips." 

He had already decided, in Beauchamp^ s Career^ that 
"It is not too much to say that a domination of the In- 
tellect in England would at once and entirely alter the 
face of the country." Reade agrees with this opinion, 

1 One of Out Conquerors, 72. * Ibid., 228. 



INSTITUTIONS 225 

only he says bluntly that one is " an ass * * * to have 
brains in a country where brains are a crime." This na- 
tional stupidity and sentimentality are made impregnable 
by national complacency. Lytton remarks on the ego- 
tistic nature of British patriotism: ^ 

"The vanity of the Frenchman consists (as I have somewhere 
read) in belonging to so great a country; but the vanity of the 
Englishman exults in the thought that so great a country belongs 
to himself." 

These criticisms are all from within. Disraeli is able to 
contribute one from without. He describes the British 
through his Jewish Besso: ^ 

"There is not a race so proud, so wilful, so rash and so obsti- 
nate. They live in a misty clime, on raw meats, and wines of 
fire. They laugh at their fathers, and never say a prayer. They 
pass their days in the chase, gaming, and all violent courses. 
They have all the power of the State, and all its wealth; and 
when they can wring no more from their peasants, they plunder 
the kings of India." 

Nevertheless they all, even the Hebrew within their par- 
liamentary halls, believed in the English character and the 
civilization it was blunderingly working out. The most 
incorrigible satirist of that civilization was Peacock (who 
often, we suspect, gets carried away by his own eloquence), 
and in his fervent summary of almost all our public fail- 
ures, he hints in the very phrasing, although ironically, 

^ England and the English, 21. 

^ Tancred, 242. It is a race also that "having little imagination, takes refuge 
in reason, and carefully locks the door when the steed is stolen." 379. More- 
over, the Oriental says of the European what the latter appHed in the course of 
time to the American, — he "talks of progress, because, by an ingenious appli- 
cation of some scientific acquirements, he has established a society which has 
mistaken comfort for civilization." 227. 



226 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

at the possibility of these failures being transformed into 
successes. Sir Telegraph Paxarett, accused of extrav- 
agance, retorts with a conditional promise of retrench- 
ment: ^ 

"When ecclesiastical dignitaries imitate the temperance and 
humility of the founder of that religion by which they feed and 
flourish; when the man in place acts on the principles which 
he professed while he was out; when borough electors will not 
sell their suffrage, nor their representatives their votes; when po- 
ets are not to be hired for the maintenance of any opinion; when 
learned divines can afford to have a conscience; when universi- 
ties are not one hundred years in knowledge behind all the rest 
of the world; when young ladies speak as they think, and when 
those who shudder at a tale of the horror of slavery will de- 
prive their own palates of a sweet taste, for the purpose of con- 
tributing all in their power to its extinction: — why then, For- 
ester, I will lay down my barouche." 

Satire, being frankly a destructive process, makes no pre- 
tense of supplementing its iconoclasm by reconstruction. 
But such implication of reform as may lurk in the criticism 
that paves the way may be looked for more assuredly than 
elsewhere in attacks on institutions. Such criticism is 
neither lowered by the recrimination that puts satire of 
individuals below the normal satiric level, nor elevated by 
the artistic detachment that lifts satire of human nature 
above it. For it is not in the too small lump of the solitary 
specimen that the leaven can best work, nor yet in the too 
large mass of the whole human race. It is in the unit be- 
tween these two extremes, the body politic or social or re- 
ligious or educational, that it may best perform its fer- 
menting ministrations. 

Even so, however, the idealism of the Victorian novel- 

^ MelincouTty II, 47. 



INSTITUTIONS 227 

ists did not take this positive turn. English genius has on 
the whole contributed its share to the anthology of Utopian 
vision, even to the furnishing of the name, but the nine- 
teenth century, preeminent in criticism and speculation, 
venting more talk about it than all the other centuries 
put together, has to its credit in this line, aside from 
Erewhon and The Coming Race, only Morris's News from 
Nowhere, and that is too naive in its simplification of 
human nature and too absurd in its glorification of medie- 
valism to be taken seriously. More carefully thought out 
as an Ideal State, more searching in its seriousness, more 
pertinent in its satire, and more constructive in its con- 
clusion, than any of these, is the American product, Bel- 
lamy's Looking Backward. 

The Victorians did their looking backward literally from 
their own present instead of an imagined future. And 
since in so doing they did for the most part but cast their 
eye on prospects drear, and since they shrank from a fu- 
ture they could only guess and fear if they thought about 
it at all, they wisely and practically spent themselves on 
the present. And because of this acceptance of the present 
and all its institutions as a whole, they could couch their 
lances only against this or that detail, not against the chal- 
lenge of civilization itself. 

The following instances show a characteristic difference 
in their resemblance. " In England, poverty is a crime," 
exclaims Lytton in the nineteenth century. The observa- 
tion is ironic, the tone scornful, and the object of the ironic 
scorn is the snobbishness of those who from the heights 
of wealth look down upon and despise the poor. The re- 
buke is intended for the alien attitude toward that portion 
of society which we may expect, according to Biblical au- 
thority, always to have with us. Poverty itself is a mys- 



228 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

terious dispensation, having indeed many discernible com- 
pensations, and ever mitigable by applied morality. 

"Poverty is the only crime," echoes Bernard Shaw in the 
twentieth century. His assertion is meant literally, the 
tone is decisive, and the indictment is lodged against so- 
ciety at large for being so stupid and inefficient as to per- 
mit such a canker, pernicious but curable, to infect its 
body. 

To remedy the supercilious attitude toward the poor is 
still to leave poverty intact and in permanent possession 
of the field. To remedy the criminal carelessness which 
tolerates its presence is to abolish the thing itself. 

But even if the twentieth century has stated the prob- 
lem, it has not yet solved it. And while neither the state- 
ment nor the solution of the nineteenth is reckoned ade- 
quate to-day, still the Victorians did accomplish something 
if not much, and all we can say for ourselves is that we 
have not accomplished much, if something. Moreover, to 
flatter ourselves that we are the first to discover the social 
onus of poverty and other ills, is to ignore the contribu- 
tions not only of the novelists but of Carlyle, Ruskin, 
Morris, and Henry George. When the remaining four- 
fifths of our century shall have been added to history, we 
may perhaps applaud ourselves. At present it will do us 
no harm to render unto Victorianism the acknowledgment 
that is its due. 



CHAPTER III 

TYPES 

For that form of satire which deals with actual indi- 
viduals, photographed or caricatured, the designation per- 
sonal is sufficiently descriptive. But for that which deals 
with fictitious individuals, wherein the models that sat 
for the portraits have passed through the imaginative pro- 
cess that makes their portraiture a work of art, there is no 
satisfactory name. Typical^ in distinction from individual 
and institutional y is tolerably expressive, but a term to be 
apologized for. The school of art known as realistic, which 
was theoretically adopted by the nineteenth century, re- 
pudiates creations that are "mere types," and claims for 
itself the achievement of true individuals. The sign of 
individuality is a discordant complexity. Every man may 
have his humour but he is not always in it. He may be 
ruled by a master passion, but the rule is not a monopolis- 
tic autocracy. Its supremacy is constantly disputed and 
threatened by mob rebellion. Civil war is the usual re- 
gime, and the attainment of a stabilized government is 
rare. 

Tamburlaine, Volpone, Othello, Tartuffe, Blifil, are not 
untrue, but they are only partial truths. We see much, 
undoubtedly the most significant and dominating traits, 
but we cannot see all when the searchlight is concentrated 
on a single spot. Agamemnon, Hamlet, Tom Jones, Jaf- 
feir, swayed, perplexed, inconsistent, at once infinite and 
abject, are more nearly full length and complete drawings. 

229 



230 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

Milton's Satan becomes humanized when, entering the 
human abode, he grows hesitant, half regretful, half eager, 
a prey to conflicting emotions and cross purposes. 

Yet those desirable factors of art, unity and emphasis, 
must be secured, and they can be secured only by throw- 
ing the emphasis on some one feature, thus giving unity 
to the character. In the field of satire a classification 
based on these qualities is the more easily made in that 
any given character is usually satirized for some particu- 
lar trait, although the problem does not end there. We 
may construct encampments for our army of characters — 
and in Victorian fiction they come in battalions — and we 
may label them; but we shall find it less simple to assign 
the companies to their own barracks and keep them there. 

The Father of the Marshalsea is a snob. He is also 
hypocritical and foolish. Moreover, he is a sentimentalist 
and an epicurean. Withal he is not villainous, but more 
pathetic than execrable. He has no apparent kinship 
with the Countess de Saldar, yet she also may be de- 
scribed in the above terms. The enumeration would not 
show the diflference. Thus not only does each real char- 
acter refuse to be known by one name and one only, but 
the congregation assembled under any one denomination 
shows such diversity as to make the category itself ques- 
tionable. Mrs. Mackensie and Mrs. Clennam, Mr. Dom- 
bey and Bertie Stanhope, Tom Tulliver and Sir Wil- 
loughby Patterne,are all egoists; but they would find little 
congeniality in their mutual egoism. 

All that can be done is to indicate the range and the con- 
centration of the main types. These types will of course 
represent those elements in human character which seem 
to the satirist such deflections from an ideal as are amen- 
able to comic exposure and perhaps correction. It does 



TYPES 231 

not seem possible to reduce them to fewer than seven or 
eight heads, as follows: hypocrisy, folly, snobbishness, sen- 
timentality, egoism, fanaticism, and vulgarity. 

These various fields have their specialists. Hypocrisy, 
including sycophancy and deliberate imposture of any 
kind, belongs to Dickens, with Thackeray, Trollope, and 
others following not far behind. He leads also in depiction 
of folly and incompetence, though these prevail widely in 
Victorian fiction; and Meredith excels in portrayal of 
mental incapacity and fallacy in reasoning. It is the 
latter who comes to the front with sentimentality and 
egoism, having but few predecessors. Thackeray handles 
snobbishness in all its ramifications of worldliness and 
elegant ennui. But although he contributes the name, 
the thing exists on the pages of Lytton, Disraeli, Trollope, 
and Dickens. Fanaticism, bigotry, all sorts of fads, make 
another common ground for Peacock and Butler, and crop 
up in Reade, Bronte, and Kingsley. Coarse vulgarity is 
the rarest of all, the Age of Propriety refusing to trans- 
plant this weed from life to literature, but it is admitted 
by Dickens, Thackeray, Reade, and Trollope. 

Since satire is usually directed against the special thing 
in which the satirist feels superior, we may deduce the 
favorite Victorian virtues to have been sincerity, wisdom, 
rationality, refinement, and a sense of proportion; a large 
order, but the nineteenth century would scorn a smaller. 

Dickens did not invent the hypocrite, nor did he sup- 
ply anything new to the investigation of the nature of this 
most subtile of all the beasts of the field. He himself had 
not the subtlety to search out causes and discover possi- 
ble extenuations and values in a thing he simply and flatly 
abhorred and saw no excuse for. What he does furnish is 
an immense amount of data, with many variations, show- 



232 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

ing in extenso this aspect of human nature. At least three 
dozen of his three hundred characters exhibit the seamy- 
side of scheming and deceit. From Pickwick^ wherein 
Mr. Winkle, unfrocked as to skates and branded as a hum- 
bug and an impostor because he assumed an accomplish- 
ment when he had it not, to Edwin Broody harboring 
Luke Honey thunder, professional philanthropist, who, 
"Always something in the nature of a Boil upon the face 
of society, * * * expanded into an inflammatory Wen 
in Minor Canon Corner," no volume is entirely free from 
the trail of the serpent. 

Most of the humbugs and impostors are, like the phi- 
lanthropist, professional. Dodson and Fogg, Sergeant 
Buzfuz, Mr. Tulkinghorn, turn their intrigues into legal 
channels; Mr. Bumble and Mrs. Mann, into civic; Dr. 
Blimber and Mrs. Pipchin, into pedagogic. Mr. Merdle 
tricks the financial world, though Mr. Casby, operating 
on a smaller scale, makes himself much more of a fraud. 
Mr. Crummies, Mrs. Gamp, Mrs. Crupp, in their various 
capacities, abstain from giving their patrons value re- 
ceived. The Barnacles, parasites clinging to the Ship of 
State, pose as public servants and benefactors. 

It happens, however, that those who confine their dis- 
sembling and pretense to private life are of the highest 
hypocritical quality. Mr. Mantalini expertly bamboozles 
his wife. Mrs. Sparsit successfully plays her part for the 
benefit of Mr. Bounderby. Mr. Pumblechook protests too 
much to little Pip, now grown up and prosperous, but car- 
ries it oflF with an air. Mr. Carker, who "hid himself 
behind his sleek, hushed, crouching manner, and his ivory 
smile," and who, " sly of manner, sharp of tooth, soft of 
foot, watchful of eye, oily of tongue, cruel of heart, nice 
of habit, sat with a dainty steadfastness and patience at 



TYPES 233 

his work, as if he were waiting at a mouse's hole," finally 
catches his mouse, though only to be eluded again. 

A perfect modern instance of the bubble pricked by the 
ancient Socratic method is that of Mr. Curdle, eminent 
dramatic critic. He has been talking big about the Unities 
of the Drama. Nicholas innocently asks what they might 
be. He is informed: ^ 

"Mr. Curdle coughed and considered. 'The unities, sir,' he 
said, 'are a completeness — a kind of universal dovetailedness 
with regard to place and time — a sort of a general oneness, if 
I may be allowed to use so strong an expression. I take those 
to be the dramatic unities, so far as I have been enabled to be- 
stow attention upon them, and I have read much upon the sub- 
ject and thought much. I find, running through the perform- 
ances of this child,' said Mr. Curdle, turning to the Phenomenon, 
'a unity of feeling, a breadth, a light and shade, a warmth of 
colouring, a tone, a harmony, a glow, an artistical develop- 
ment of original conceptions, which I look for, in vain, among 
older performers. I don't know whether I make myself 
understood?' 

"'Perfectly,' replied Nicholas. 

"'Just so,' said Mr. Curdle, pulling up his neckcloth. 'That 
is my definition of the unities of the drama.'" 

The great trio, Pecksniff, Bagstock, and Heep, occur 
in the three successive novels of the six years ending 
with the mid-century. Pecksniff is the most gratuitous 
offender, for he encases himself in piety and benevolence, 
and inserts his falseness into every word, every deed, every 
relation of life. Heep's specious humility is as unrelaxed 
and vigilant, but it is more of a means to an end and not, 
like Pecksniff's, an end in itself. He fawns and flatters 
and cheats for the benefits to be derived from such policies. 

'^Nicholas Nickleby, I, 415. 



234 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

Thus slippery are the steps of Uriah's ladder. He has, 
moreover, a word of self-defense which forces his educa- 
tional training to share the responsibility. When he is re- 
minded by Copperfield that greed and cunning always 
overreach themselves, he retorts by implicating the school 
where he was taught "from nine o'clock to eleven, that la- 
bour was a curse; and from eleven o'clock to one, that it 
was a blessing and a cheerfulness and a dignity," and so on. 
Major Bagstock resembles Heep in being servile in manner 
instead of pompously patronizing; but while Chesterton 
may be right in calling him a more subtle hypocrite than 
Pecksniff,^ it is also true that the Major's hypocrisy is not 
quite his whole existence, as it is of both Pecksniff and 
Heep. He is at least a gourmand in addition, if nothing 
more. 

Before Dickens, in our period, the only character to ex- 
emplify this trait, aside from Peacock's Feathernest, is 
Lytton's Robert Beaufort, in Night and Morning. The 
author remarks in a later preface that this character might 
be rated as a forerunner to Pecksniff; but he is in reality 
more of the Blifil type, his brother Philip acting as his Tom 
Jones. 

Lytton, however, is inclined to discuss the subject by the 
way. In one of his earlier novels he says, — ^ 

"Honesty — patriotism — religion — these have had their hyp- 
ocrites for life; — but passion permits only momentary dis- 
semblers." 

In a later one he analyzes a dubious citizen: ^ 

* In his Dickens, 120. he adds, "Dickens does mean it as a deliberate light on 
Mr. Dombey's character that he basks with a fatuous calm in the blazing sun 
of Major Bagstock's tropical and offensive flattery." 

^ Godolphin, 198. 

^ Maltr avers, 155. 



Types ^35 

"But our banker was really a charitable man, and a benevo- 
lent man, and a sincere believer. How, then, was he a hypo- 
crite? Simply because he professed to be far more charitable, 
more benevolent, and more pious than he really was. His reputa- 
tion had now arrived to that degree of immaculate polish that 
the smallest breath, which would not have tarnished the 
character of another man, would have fixed an indelible stain 
upon his." 

The same might be said of another banker, the respectable 
Bulstrode, whom George Eliot presents with no satire 
and an almost pitiful sympathy. 

The wealthy plebeian Avenel is embarrassed by the in- 
opportune arrival of his rustic sister in the presence of his 
aristocratic guests. By a brilliant counter-stroke of a can- 
did and courageous confession, he stems the tide and wins 
the day. But in private he is very severe with the poor 
culprit, and then admits to himself, "I'm a cursed hum- 
bug, * * * but the world is such a humbug!" ^ 

The only Pecksniffian hypocrite outside of Dickens is 
the Reverend Brocklehurst, whom Jane Eyre describes 
as lecturing to the half starved and shivering girls at the 
school of which he was trustee, on the beauty of asceticism 
and the holiness of economy, while his wife and daughters 
sit in state on the platform, curled, bejewelled, opulent in 
plumes and velvet. 

The cant and manceuvering of the Thackeray and 
Trollope hypocrites are necessary as first aid to the am- 
bitious. By means of them Becky Sharp achieves a hus- 
band, Mrs. Mackenzie a son-in-law, Moffit and Crosbie 
a patrician father-in-law, and Lady Carbury a literary rep- 
utation. Mr. Slope and the Paterofl^s fail but no less bear 
up beneath their unsuccess. Melmotte, another Merdle, 

^ My Novel, 353. 



236 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

succumbs, like him, forced to realize that deceit may strike 
one with a tragic rebound. 

Jermyn and Grandcourt, the latter especially, indulge in 
deceit out of pure selfishness, but in neither of them does 
George Eliot consider hypocrisy a matter for even satirical 
mirth. In lighter vein she does indeed show up the poseur 
in low life. Mr. Dowlas, oracle of 'The RainboWy laying 
down the law about ghosts, is too frightened by the appari- 
tion of Silas Marner to speak. Having recovered and feel- 
ing " that he had not been quite on a par with himself and 
the occasion," he intrigues to get appointed as deputy 
constable, and consents to serve, after " duly rehearsing a 
small ceremony known in high ecclesiastical life as nolo 
episcopariy Mr. Scales, discoursing largely on excom- 
munication, is another caught in the Socratic trap by being 
asked for definition of the term. He is no less ready than 
Mr. Curdle, though more sententious: ^ 

"Well, it's a law term — speaking in a figurative sort of way — 
meaning that a Radical was no gentleman." 

It is George Eliot who sees the necessity of the mask 
that most are content simply to tear away or disfigure. 
Although she speaks through a worldly wise character, 
she sounds no note of dissent: ^ 

"TU tell you what, Dan,' said Sir Hugo, *a man who sets his 
face against every sort of humbug is simply a three-cornered 

^ Felix Holt. I, 152. Kingsley depicts the same thing in higher life, and takes 
it more seriously: Lancelot is contemptuous over the vicar, — " He told me, 
hearing me quote Schiller, to beware of the Germans, for they were all Pan- 
theists at heart. I asked him whether he included Lange and Bunsen, and it 
appeared that he had never read a German book in his life. He then flew furi- 
ously at Mr. Carlyle, and I found that all he knew of him was from a certain 
review in the Quarterly." Yeast, 63. 

* Daniel Deronda, II, 162. 



TYPES 237 

impracticable fellow. There's a bad style of humbug, but there 
is also a good style — one that oils the wheels and makes prog- 
ress possible.'" 

This is recognized also by Lytton, who quotes "an 
anonymous writer of 1722:"^ 

"Deceit is the strong but subtile chain which runs through 
all the members of a society, and links them together; trick or 
be tricked, is the alternative; 'tis the way of the world, and with- 
out it intercourse would drop." 

Trollope subscribes with qualification, by having the 
archdeacon say, on the death of Mrs. Proudie, — ^ 

"The proverb of De Mortuis is founded on humbug. Hun- 
bug out of doors is necessary." 

At the extreme opposite from the hypocrites, shrewd, 
knowing, wise at least in their own conceit, stand the in- 
competent, victims of folly; satirized not for ignorance 
but for bland unconsciousness of it, usually accompanied 
by a hallucination of efficiency. As the hypocrites shade 
off into villains, to be rebuked without humor, such as 
Jasper Losely, Randal Leslie, Bill Sykes, Sedgett, so the 
fools merge into the artless, to be smiled at without re- 
buke, as Colonel Digby and Colonel Newcome, Frank 
Hazeldean, the Vardens, Tom Pinch, Captain Cuttle, and 
"poor, excommunicated Miss Tox, who, if she were a 
fawner and a toad-eater, was at least an honest and a con- 
stant one." 

It is Dickens again who contributes the most data to this 
study, and particularly to the genus. Silly Dame. Here 
his amusement over mere fatuous complacency becomes 
warmed into scorn when that stupidity affects the home 

1 Maltravers, 261. * Last Chronicles, I, 300. 



238 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

she has in charge, and lowers into a failure the very thing 
that it is most important to raise into success, — such suc- 
cess not being automatic. Mrs. Nickleby, Mrs. Wilfer, 
Mrs. Pinching, like Jane Austen's Mrs. Bennet and Mrs. 
Palmer, and Susan Ferrier's Lady Juliana Douglass, are 
comparatively harmless, and are indulged accordingly. 
But an incapacity that may be picturesque in easy cir- 
cumstances deepens into a grave misdemeanor when joined 
to a small income. Mrs. Micawber, Mrs. Pocket, Mrs. 
Pardiggle, and especially Mrs. Jellyby are domestic pests, 
at whom we are more exasperated than amused. 

Aside from Dickens, the only artist much interested in 
this stratum of human nature is the one who has given us 
Mrs. Tulliver and Mrs. Vincy and her daughter, but they 
are not real sources of trouble, except Rosamund, and her 
failure is more spiritual than material. Mrs. Tulliver, a 
plaintive, hopelessly literal soul, is distressed over her hus- 
band's metaphoric speech about "a good wagoner with a 
mole on his face." She resents feebly the dogmatizing of 
the majestic Mrs. Glegg, but would never go "to the 
length of quarreling with her any more than a water-fowl 
that puts out its leg in a deprecating manner can be said to 
quarrel with a boy who throws stones." Under another 
metaphor she is an amiable fish, which, "after running her 
head against the same resisting medium for thirteen years, 
would go at it again to-day with undiluted alacrity." ^ 

Out of her saddening experience Rosamund did emerge 
somewhat wiser, but with none of the higher wisdom which 
constitutes character. 

"She simply continued to be mild In her temper, inflexible in 
her judgment, disposed to admonish her husband, and also 
to frustrate him by stratagem." ^ 

' Mill on the Floss, III, 113. * MiddUmarck, III, 460. 



TYPES 239 

The other section of this class most fully recruited is made 
up of the foolish young men. It might look as though 
in the novelist's world masculine folly were a malady 
incident to youth, while on the other hand, the feminine 
sort appeared late. For it happens that Lydia and Kitty 
Bennet have no real successors. There are indeed plenty 
of Hetty Sorrels, Lucy Deanes, Rosa Mackenzies, Amelia 
Sedleys, Dahlia Flemings; but their innocence and pathos 
protect them from satire. And the merely vapid and 
vain school girl is apparently too worthless a figure to be 
given a place on Victorian pages. So also seems the man 
whose mental growth has not kept pace with the years. 
Mr. Micawber may be taken as the exception that proves 
the rule. Sir Lukin Dunstane likewise shows that one may 
reach man's estate and flourish therein on a small allot- 
ment of intelligence. He makes his best record in a gos- 
sipy little conversation with his wife, to whom he is giving 
an account of the Dacier-Asper wedding. Emmy had com- 
mented on the eloquence of his report: ^ 

"He murmured something in praise of the institution of mar- 
riage — when celebrated impressively, it seemed. 

"'Tony calls the social world the "theater of appetites," as we 
have it at present,' she said; ' and the world at a wedding is, one 
may reckon, in the second act in the hungry tragi-comedy.' 

"'Yes, there's the breakfast,' Sir Lukin assented. Mrs. Fryar- 
Gunnett was much more intelligible to him; in fact, quite so, as 
to her speech." 

Folly is more ludicrous in the young man than in the 
maid, on account of his greater conspicuousness in af- 
fairs, and the greater things expected of him, — any fail- 
ure divulging the discrepancy between fact and fancy 
which is the basis of humor. It is also true that he stands 

^ Diana of the Crossways, 407. 



240 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

a better chance of having his foolishness shaken out of 
him in his more exposed and strenuous life. Both these 
conditions are implied in a reflection made by one of 
Trollope's characters. Isabel Boncassen, the frank Ameri- 
can beauty, looks upon the young man as a type: ^ 

"Young men are pretty much the same everywhere, I guess. 
They never have their wits about them. They never mean what 
they say, because they don't understand the use of words. They 
are generally half impudent and half timid. When in love they 
do not at all understand what has befallen them. What they 
want they try to compass as a cow does when it stands stretch- 
ing out its head toward a stack of hay which it cannot reach. 
Indeed, there is no such thing as a young man, for a man is not 
really a man till he is middle-aged. But take them at their 
worst, they are a deal too good for us, for they become men some 
day, whereas we must only be women to the end." 

Dickens is again a contributor of portraits, though not of 
the best, and is joined this time by Thackeray, Trollope, 
and Meredith. 

Tom Gradgrind, product of a system, and Edmund 
Sparkler, product of a lack of system, deserve mention, as 
does Edward Dorrit, though sketched without color. Raw- 
don Crawley and Joseph Sedley, no longer in first flush of 
youth, are consistent exponents of gullible good nature 
and ponderous vacuity. But the two prizes of undeviat- 
ing stupidity are Sir Felix Carbury and Algernon . Blan- 
cove. 

Sir Felix is a spoiled darling and an excrescence on the 
face of the earth. His accomplishments are set forth in a 
description of his state of enforced solitude consequent 
upon his latest exhibition of monumental inefficiency: ^ 

1 The Duke's Children, II, 64. 

2 jhg lyay We Live Now, II, 104. 



TYPES 241 

"He had so spent his life hitherto that he did not know how 
to get through a day in which no excitement was provided for 
him. He never read. Thinking was altogether beyond him. 
And he had never done a day's work in his life. He could lie in 
bed. He could eat and drink. He could smoke and sit idle. He 
could play cards; and could amuse himself with women, — the 
lower the culture of the women, the better the amusement. Be- 
yond these things the world had nothing for him." 

The complacent fool would be matter for pure mirth if 
he could live for himself alone; but unfortunately his 
worthless existence is as adequate as any for the promotion 
of disaster to others. Sir Felix is comparatively harmless, 
for his wreckage is reparable, but Algernon is made a deus 
ex machinay and lets his commission go by default. Those 
who trusted him learn that "He that sendeth a message by 
the hand of a fool cutteth off his own feet, and drinketh 
in damage." Or, as his own author says: ^ 

"But, if it is permitted to the fool to create entanglements 
and set calamity in motion, to arrest its course is the last thing 
the Gods allow of his doing." 

He is, however, a fool of quality In that he has a phi- 
losophy of life, and if he were pent up in his room, he could 
mitigate tedium by reverie. One may indulge in antici- 
pations without possessing the faculty of foresight. His 
cousin "aspired to become Attorney-General of these 
realms," but he had other views: ^ 

"Civilization had tried him and found him wanting; so he con- 
demned it. Moreover, sitting now all day at a desk, he was civ- 
ilization's drudge. No wonder, then, that his dream was of 
prairies, and primeval forests, and Australian wilds. He be- 
lieved in his heart that he would be a man new made over there, 

* Rhoda Fleming, 372. ' Ibid.y 46. 



242 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

and always looked forward to a savage life as to a bath that 
would cleanse him, so that it did not much matter his being un- 
clean for the present." 

The present sorry scheme of things also suffers him to 
wander the streets in temporary bankruptcy: ^ 

"He continued strolling on, comparing the cramped misty 
London aspect of things with his visionary free dream of the 
glorious prairies, where his other life was : the forests, the moun- 
tains, the endless expanses; the horses, the flocks, the slipshod 
ease of language and attire; and the grog-shops. Aha! There 
could be no mistake about him as a gentleman and a scholar out 
there! Nor would Nature shut up her pocket and demand in- 
numerable things of him, as civilization did. This he thought 
in the vengefulness of his outraged mind." 

Meredith keeps on the trail of this luckless youth with 
something of the relentlessness with which Blifil, Rev- 
erend Collins, Mrs. Norris, and Mrs. Proudie are pursued; 
but he gives a good Meredithian reason for it. Twice 
he takes the trouble to explain him, both times on the 
grounds of realism: ^ 

"So long as the fool has his being in the world, he will be a 
part of every history, nor can I keep him from his place in a nar- 
rative that is made to revolve more or less upon its own wheels. 
* * * for the fool is, after his fashion, prudent, and will 
never, if he can help it, do himself thorough damage, that he 
may leam by it and be wiser." 

Again, an incident is followed by comment. Algernon, 
being loggy after a dinner at the Club, fancies himself mel- 
ancholy and profound: ^ 

" ' I must forget myself. I'm under some doom. I see it now. 
Nobody cares for me. I don't know what happiness is. I was 

1 Rhoda Fleming, 108. ^ Ibid., 307. ^ /^,-^^^ 337. 



TYPES 243 

born under a bad star. My fate's written.' Following his youth- 
ful wisdom, this wounded hart dragged his slow limbs toward the 
halls of brandy and song. 

"One learns to have compassion for fools, by studying them: 
and the fool, though Nature is wise, is next door to Nature. He 
is naked in his simplicity; he can tell us much, and suggest more. 
My excuse for dwelling upon him is, that he holds the link of 
my story. Where fools are numerous, one of them must be 
prominent now and then in a veracious narration." 

According to the old duality of satirized objects, — Vice 
and Folly, identified with the deceiver and the deceived, — 
the two classes just discussed would exhaust the list. But 
these signify folly in its narrowest and most literal sense, 
a plain lack of brains and a general incapacity. In its 
wider sense it includes misuse as well as want of intelli- 
gence. These mortals, as Puck discovered, are indeed all 
fools, at times and on certain points. The number may 
not be infinite, but Lydgate discovered sixty-three kinds; 
and Barclay augmented the list to nearly one hundred. 
Perfect wisdom would cast out not only ignorance, but 
also frivolity, sentimentality, vanity, all sorts of false 
standards and all manner of fallacies. Therefore snobs, 
romanticists, egoists, fanatics, merely exemplify folly in 
its varieties and ramifications. 

The snob is defined by his great expositor as "one who 
meanly admires mean things." A modern scholar calls 
vulgarity "satisfaction with anything inferior when a 
superior is attainable." ^ These definitions together in- 
dicate why snobbishness and vulgarity are allied, though 
not identical. There is, however, this difference, that sat- 

^ Dr. David Starr Jordan. As to Thackeray, the analysis made by Trollope 
is very much to the point, — that he mustered all his dislikes and animosities 
under that caption. See the Biography, 82. 



244 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

isfaction implies in itself a passive acquiescence, whereas 
admiration leads naturally to imitation, and if possible, ap- 
propriation, of the thing approved. Of course, satisfaction 
on a different plane results from a feeling of attainment 
and possession; but it then becomes pride or vanity, which 
in turn may or may not be of the snobbish sort. 

In popular apprehension, indeed, snobbishness and vul- 
garity are rated as more opposite than allied. The snob is 
thought of as either belonging to the polite world or try- 
ing to secure an entrance to its polished circles. If he oc- 
cupies the former position, he boasts of his refinement, and 
from his eminence contemplates with scorn or at best an 
affable condescension, the mob below. To this class be- 
long such members as Lytton's and Disraeli's aristocrats; 
such diverse types in Dickens as Sir John Chester, the 
Monseigneur in 'Tale of Two Cities y Mrs. General, and Mrs. 
Gowan; Thackeray's Marquis of Steyne, Major Pendennis, 
and the Misses Pinkerton; Trollope's de Courcys and the 
Chaldicote circle; Meredith's Everard Romfrey and Fer- 
dinand Laxley. 

But if the snob is engaged in climbing up instead of look- 
ing down, he is likely to have some common clay still 
clinging to his shoes, as well as to be dishevelled by the ex- 
ertions of the ascent. Such insignia of vulgarity are worn 
by a numerous clan, including the politician Rigby, the 
money-lender Baron Levy; ^ the Veneerings and Dorrits, 
and those patriotic American snobs whom Martin Chuz- 

^ This character makes a shrewd comment, which indicts English society for 
being a promoter of snobbishness: "They call me a parvenu, and borrow my 
money. They call our friend the wit, a parvenu, and submit to all his inso- 
lence * * * provided they can but get him to dinner. They call the best 
debater in the Parliament of England a parvenu, and will entreat him, some 
day or other, to be prime minister, and ask him for stars and garters. A droll 
world, and no wonder the parvenus want to upset it. " My Novel, II, 130. 



TYPES ±4^ 

zlewit found so insufferably vulgar; Barry Lyndon, Mr. 
Osborne, and Becky Sharp; Mr. Slope, Mr. Crosbie, and 
the great Melmotte. 

On the other hand, the frankly vulgar is reckoned among 
the plebeians. As there is a snobbishness free from coarse- 
ness, so there is a vulgarity unembellished even by pseudo- 
culture. In this ugly and gross scum of the earth no nov- 
elist really delights except the creator of Mrs. Gamp, 
Quilp, Squeers, and Fagin and his crew, though Thack- 
eray is able to depict Sir Pitt Crawley; Trollope, the 
Scathards; and Meredith, Sedgett. 

The compound of snobbishness and vulgarity has the 
additional complexity of ramifying into hypocrisy on one 
side and sentimentality on the other. The first conjunc- 
tion is made because of the incitement to that fawning, 
flattering servility that more than anything else rouses 
satiric disgust. The second occurs when the flattering 
unction is laid to one's own soul instead of being paid to 
the possessions of others. The first is obvious and its ex- 
amples are legion. The second is more subtle and ob- 
scure, though perhaps almost as prevalent. It consists in 
an inaccurate orientation, a supposition that one has ar- 
rived at a goal, when the case is otherwise. Such unwar- 
ranted complacency cheers the lot of Mrs. Kirkpatrick, 
Mrs. Hobson Newcome, Mrs. Proudie, and the Countess 
de Saldar. 

This, however, is only one phase of sentimentality. It 
also may exist independently, or otherwise combined 
than with snobbishness or vulgarity. It is a term some- 
what ambiguous because of a recently changed connota- 
tion. 

In the eighteenth century it was "sensibility," and re- 
garded as a virtue until Jane Austen exhibited it in Mari- 



246 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

anne Dashwood and her mother. At that time it was 
thought of as excess of feehng or sentiment cherished for 
its own sake, without much regard for the worthiness of its 
object. Marianne, disappointed in the vanished romance 
she had built up chiefly from imaginative material, " would 
have thought herself very inexcusable had she been able to 
sleep at all the first night after parting from Willoughby. 
She would have been ashamed to look her family in the 
face the next morning, had she not risen from her bed in 
more need of repose than when she lay down in it." ^ 

If Meredith, three-quarters of a century later, had been 
relating the sad fortunes of a self-deceived young lady, he 
would have stressed in his account of her character, the 
cause of the trouble, that is, the process of constructing a 
Spanish castle with a flimsy foundation in fact, rather than 
the effect, namely, the emotional orgy which celebrated its 
inevitable but astonishing collapse. He would have seen 
that preliminary process as possible because of the disre- 
gard for facts which is the real mark of the sentimentalist.^ 
This later interpretation is not a contradiction of the 
earlier one, but a shifting of emphasis. The common factor 
in the two definitions is feeling, ranging all the way from 

^ Sense and Sensibility, II, 85. 

2 This conception of sentimentality has many illustrations, expressed and im- 
plied. Chesterton describes the sentimentalist as "the man who wants to eat 
his cake and have it," who "has no sense of honour about ideas," and who keeps 
a quarreling "intellectual harem." Crotch, in his Pageantry of Dickens, remarks 
that the English "prefer a plaster of platitudes to the x-rays of investigation." 
Meredith in his Up to Midnight, observes that liberty is one of the phrases we 
suck like sweetmeats, and adds, "We read the newspapers daily, and yet we 
surround ourselves with a description of scenic extravaganza conjured up to 
displace uncomfortable facts. The image of it is the Florentine Garden estab- 
lished in the midst of the Plague." 

See also Butler's Notebooks, Anatole France's essay on Dumas, and Bailey's 
biography of Meredith. 



TYPES 247 

simple preference or inclination to strong emotion. But 
whereas formerly this element was accepted without fur- 
ther analysis, it came later to be accounted for in its re- 
lation to the intellect. Emotion is an excellent driver but 
an untrustworthy leader. It is when it assumes leadership, 
when action is not only impelled but guided by feeling, 
that the ensuing motion is in danger of being erratic, un- 
progressive, perhaps calamitous. This more or less wil- 
ful blindness, which is the essence of sentimentality, is of 
course a very natural human trait. Since it is the func- 
tion of emotion to supply heat, and of intellect to furnish 
light, and since warmth is as a rule more grateful than il- 
lumination, particularly if the prospect does not please, we 
are much more likely to be warmed in our passage through 
life than illumined. To refuse to see the disagreeable is as 
instinctive as to seek the delightful. Nor could one be re- 
garded as more of a fault than the other until the love of 
truth for its own sake became an ideal, accompanying the 
dominance of the scientific spirit. 

This accounts for the fact that, while Meredith did not 
invent the sentimentalist any more than Dickens the hyp- 
ocrite or Thackeray the snob, he is the first to take a deep 
and conscious interest in this species; being especially fitted 
for it by his own incisive, highly rationalized nature as well 
as by the spirit of his time. His predecessors in this field 
are Peacock, Gaskell, Dickens, Thackeray, and Eliot, 
although the last is rather a contemporary. 

From Squire Headlong, the would-be savant, to Mr. 
Falconer, the would-be Platonist and devotee of Saint 
Cecilia, Peacock traces a vein of rather innocuous senti- 
mentality, but of Miss Damaretta Pinmoney he gives a 
definite account, followed by several examples: ^ 

^ Melincourt, 23. 



248 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

"She had cultivated a great deal of theoretical romance — 
in taste, not in feeling — an important distinction — which en- 
abled her to be most liberally sentimental in words, without 
at all influencing her actions." 

Mrs. Shaw represents those who so appreciate the value 
of romantic affliction that, lacking a grief, they manufac- 
ture a grievance to cover the deficiencies of a too roseate 
existence. On a certain melancholy occasion to be sure 
she orders "those extra delicacies of the season which are 
always supposed to be efficacious against immoderate 
grief at farewell dinners." But her usual manner — * 

"* * * had always something plaintive in it, arising 
from the long habit of considering herself a victim to an un- 
congenial marriage. Now that, the General being gone, she 
had every good of life, with as few drawbacks as possible, she 
had been rather perplexed to find an anxiety, if not a sorrow. 
She had, however, of late settled upon her own health as a 
source of apprehension; she had a nervous little cough whenever 
she thought about it; and some complaisant doctor ordered 
her just what she desired, — a winter in Italy." 

It is Mrs. Kirkpatrick, however, who takes the prize 
in "pink sentimentalism," and holds it until the arrival of 
the Countess de Saldar, and the Pole sisters. Behind the 
"sweet perpetuity of her smile" is carried on an equally 
perpetual manoevering, which ministers, under the aus- 
pices of refinement and the proprieties, to a small and sel- 
fish tyranny. If by any chance she is detected or foiled, 
she is deeply wounded, for if she hates anything, "it is the 
slightest concealment and reserve." Moreover, she never 

^ North and South, 9. Cf. Kingsley's crude and literal handling of the same 
theme. Anna Maria Heale was always talking of her nerves, "though she had 
nerves only in the sense wherein a sirloin of beef has them." Two Years 
AgOy 85. 



TYPES 249 

thinks of herself, and is "really the most forgiving person 
in the world, in forgiving slights." She is overcome by the 
spring weather, — ^ 

" Primavera, I think the Italians call it. * * * It makes 
me sigh perpetually; but then I am so sensitive. Dear Lady 
Cumnor used to say I was like a thermometer." 

But it is in her association with Lady Harriet that her 
sincerity and candor shine forth. Apprised, on one occa- 
sion, of the intention of that personage — an aristocrat in 
character as well as social station — to honor her with a 
morning call, she dispatches to a neighbor her stepdaugh- 
ter Molly, of whose friendship with Lady Harriet she is 
jealous, and keeps at home her own daughter Cynthia, to 
prepare the especially delicious luncheon to which the 
guest is to be invited as an impromptu bit of pot-luck. 
During this visit Lady Harriet brings up the question of 
white lies, confessing to an occasional indulgence, and ask- 
ing her hostess if she never yielded to the temptation. She 
is answered: ^ 

"I should have been miserable if I ever had. I should have 
died of self-reproach. 'The truth, the whole truth, and noth- 
ing but the truth,' has always seemed to me such a fine pas- 
sage. But then I have so much that is unbending in my na- 
ture." 

Dickens and Thackeray, like Lytton, Reade, and Kings- 
ley, have too much of this trait in their own temperaments 

1 Wives and Daughters, I, 394. 

^ Ibid., I, 324. Mrs. Gaskell's art is shown in making Cynthia a foil to her 
mother. Like Dr. Gibson and Molly, she sees through that lady's transparent 
veiling, but unlike them, she is more frank than polite. Her distressingly 
literal interpretations of the subtle speeches to which the household is treated, 
affords a contrast that is lacking; for instance, in the duet of Mrs. Mackenzie 
and Rosey. 



250 SATIRE IX THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

to be able to view it with complete detachment, but they 
present a few samples. Besides Mrs. Wititterly, Harold 
Skimpole, and the ever illustrative Mr. Dorrit, Dickens is 
most successful with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, and Mrs. 
Chick. 

When Mr. Micawber, stimulated by the prospect of 
something being about to turn up, presents poor Traddles, 
with great eclat and ceremony, his personal note for the 
exact amount of his indebtedness, David, a witness, re- 
flects: ^ 

"I am persuaded, not only that this was quite the same to 
JMr. Micawber as paying the money, but that Traddles himself 
hardlv knew the difference until he had had time to think about 
it." ' 

Mrs. Chick, with true Dombian genius, having helped 
to loosen her sister-in-law's slender hold upon life, now en- 
joys the pathos of the situation: - 

"What a satisfaction it was to Mrs. Chick — a commonplace 
piece of folly enough, * * * ^o patronize and be tender to 
the memor}- of that lady; in exact pursuance of her conduct 
to her in her lifetime; and to thoroughly believe herself, and 
take herself in, and make herself uncommonly comfortable on 
the strength of her toleration! \Miat a mighty pleasant \nrtue 
toleration should be when we are right, to be so ver}^ pleasant 
when we are wrong, and quite unable to demonstrate how we 
came to be invested with the privilege of exercising it!" 

In her capricious cruelty to Lucretia Tox, she pretends 
to be scandalized at what she had fostered all along, and 
taunts the dismayed woman for the very thing she had 
been aiding and abetting: ^ 

1 Danid, Copperfuld, II, 102. * Dombey and Son, I, 57. 

Ubidy 464. 



TYPES 251 

"'The scales;' here Mrs. Chick cast down an imaginary pair, 
such as are commonly used in grocers' shops; 'have fallen from 
my sight.' * * * 'How can I speak to you like that.?' re- 
torted Mrs. Chick, who, in default of having any particular 
argument to sustain herself upon, relied principally upon such 
repetitions for her most withering effects. 'Like that! You 
may well say like that, indeed!'" 

Thackeray is included in this list chiefly on the strength 
of the Osbornes, Pitt Crawley, and to a less degree, 
Blanche Armory and Mrs. Bute. Of the first he says, re- 
garding certain declarations of disinterested friendliness 
and admiration, — "There is little doubt that old Osborne 
believed all he said, and that the girls were quite in earnest 
in their protestations of affection for Miss Swartz." And 
his thrust at the hoodwinked Pitt's delighted apprehension 
that the clever Becky really understood and appreciated 
him, is a palpable hit. He also arraigns under this head 
his favorite satirical object, — "the moral world, that has, 
perhaps, no particular objection to vice, but an insuperable 
repugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name." 
On the other hand, more than any other novelist, he has 
given us sentimentalists unaware; that is, in such charac- 
ters as Helen, Laura, and Arthur Pendennis, Lady Castle- 
wood, and Colonel Newcome, he shares their own unaware- 
ness of the possession of this foible, though in all these it is 
of an innocent variety. 

George Eliot is keenly alive to this blindness in human 
nature, particularly as it manifests itself in the pernicious 
optimism of weak and wilful youth; but as with other mor- 
tal failures, it is usually too serious in her eyes for satire. 
Of all her novels, Felix Holt and Daniel Deronda alone have 
no character of this type. In the others he appears as Ar- 
thur Donnithorne, Stephen Guest, Godfrey Cass, Tito 



252 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

Melema, and Fred Vincy; but rarely is he ridiculed, and 
then ironically. 

Of the bonny young Squire Donnithorne she draws the 
portrait as he himself would see it: ^ 

"* * * candour was one of his favorite virtues; and how 
can a man's candour be seen in all its lustre unless he has a few 
failings to talk of? But he had an agreeable confidence that 
his faults were all of a generous kind — impetuous, warm- 
blooded, leonine; never crawling, crafty, reptilian. *No! I'm 
a devil of a fellow for getting myself into a hobble, but I always 
take care the load shall fall on my own shoulders.' Unhappily 
there is no inherent poetic justice in hobbles, and they will 
sometimes obstinately refuse to inflict their worst consequences 
on the prime offender, in spite of his loudly-expressed wish. 
It was entirely owing to this deficiency in the scheme of things 
that Arthur had ever brought any one into trouble besides him- 
self." 

Even when troublesome consequences threatened both 
himself and others, he was buoyed up by " a sort of im- 
plicit confidence in him that he was really such a good 
fellow at bottom, Providence would not treat him 
harshly." 

Tito Melema also leaned heavily on the law of compen- 
sation: 2 

"It was not difficult for him to smile pleadingly on those 
whom he had injured, and offer to do them much kindness: 
and no quickness of intellect could tell him exactly the taste of 
that honey on the lips of the injured." 

^ Adam Bede, I, 184. 

* Romola, II, 469. Cf. Two Years Ago, for a sample of Kingsley's personally 
applied, Thackerayan sarcasm on a similar subject, — we young men, *' blinded 
by our self-conceit," and so on. 



TYPES 253 

Godfrey Cass, having little to say for himself, is drawn 
with much sympathy, the responsibility being thrown 
upon his self-excusing father: ^ 

"The Squire's life was quite as idle as his sons', but it was a 
fiction kept up by himself and his contemporaries in Raveloe 
that youth was exclusively the period of folly, and that their 
aged wisdom was constantly in a state of endurance mitigated 
by sarcasm." 

In addition to these instances, and such casual phrases 
as, " that softening influence of the fine arts which makes 
other peoples' hardships picturesque," and " that pleasure 
of guessing which active minds notoriously prefer to 
ready-made knowledge," George Eliot defines senti- 
mentality indirectly in the words of Mary Garth, an ob- 
servant young woman and something of a humorist in her 
own right: ^ 

"* * * people were so ridiculous with their illusions, 
carrying their fools' caps unawares, thinking their own lies 
opaque while everybody elses' were transparent, making them- 
selves exceptions to everything, as if when all the world looked 
yellow under a lamp they alone were rosy. " 

The sentimentalist is rampant in Meredith's novels, de- 
picted in all his aspects. The keynote is that the senti- 
mental spirit may be arbitrarily hospitable, not obliged 
to keep open house whither all truths may turn for shelter. 
"Bear in mind," he admonishes, "that we are sentimen- 
talists. The eye is our servant, not our master; and so are 

* Silas Marner, 84. Cf. Catherine Arrowpoint's interpretation of parental 
piety: " People can easily take the sacred word duty as a name for what they 
desire any one else to do." Daniel Deronda, I, 370. 

2 Middle-march, II, 61. She also refused to marry Fred Vincy if he took 
orders, because she "could not love a man who is ridiculous." He would be so 
because of the entire absence of the clerical in his nature. 



254 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

the senses generally. We are not bound to accept more 
than we choose from them." ^ 

It is in Sandra Belloni that Meredith is most expository 
on the subject, and in connection with the Pole sisters. He 
says of them, — ^ 

"It may be seen that they were sentimentalists. That is 
to say, they supposed that they enjoyed exclusive possession 
of the Nice Feelings, and exclusively comprehended the Fine 
Shades." They had "that extraordinary sense of superiority to 
mankind which was the crown of their complacent brows. 
Eclipsed as they may be in the gross appreciation of the world by 
other people, who excel in this or that accomplishment, persons 
that nourish Nice Feelings and are intimate with the Fine 
Shades carry their own test of intrinsic value." 

Here, however, the sentimental fallacy is shown to be 
the reverse side of the refusal to see what is, and to con- 
sist in the assertion of what is not. This is a logical corol- 
lary, since merely to disregard the unpleasant is a passive 
state until reinforced by the active process of manufactur- 
ing the desirable. Actually to manufacture the desirable 
is a constructive work, and the occupation of the enter- 
prising idealist. The sentimentalist manufactures only 
in fancy, and, being a sentimentalist, does not know the 
difference. His imagination, that marvelous power of 
visualizing the absent or non-existent, is perverted by be- 
ing turned inward and forced to rest content with its hol- 
low fabrication, instead of being directed outward upon 
a plastic world waiting its formative touch. As the urge 

* Sandra Belloni^ zzo. 

' Ibid., 4. He enlarges on this result of an effete civilization, hinting 
that "our sentimentalists are a variety owing their existence to a certain pro- 
longed term of comfortable feeding. The pig, it will be retorted, passes like- 
wise through this training. He does. But in him it is not combined with an 
indigestion of high German romances." 



TYPES 255 

to an ideal of excellence is the most hopeful quality of hu- 
man nature, so the satisfied repose on the fictitious sup- 
position of such excellence is the most hopeless. Being, 
as Meredith adds, "a perfectly natural growth of a fat 
soil," it lacks the stimulus of a rebuff^ that turns earth's 
smoothness rough, and perceives no necessity for striv- 
ing or daring. 

On this assertive side sentimentality is related to egoism. 
But the relation is difficult to express, for egoism is another 
complexity that baffles analysis. Self-respect and atten- 
tion to one's own affairs are basic and indispensable vir- 
tues; while conversely, altruism is often but egoism in dis- 
guise and of all things the most sentimental. We may 
conclude, however, that it is egoism pushed to its two ex- 
tremes, vanity on the one side and selfishness on the other, 
that is the satirizible sort. It is to the vanity wing that 
sentimentality is more closely connected, as the assump- 
tion it makes is usually that of our own superiority in 
possession and attainment, our own sincerity of motive, 
and our own immunity from ordinary consequences. Such 
is the attitude of the sentimental egoists, of which Mer- 
edith gives us a full complement. 

The Countess de Saldar is abused by the exposure of her 
schemes, but resolute: ^ 

"Still to be sweet, still to smile and to amuse, — still to give 
her zealous attention to the business of the diplomatist's Elec- 
tion, still to go through her church service devoutly, required 
heroism; she was equal to it, for she had remarkable courage; 
but it was hard to feel no longer at one with Providence." 

Wilfred Pole, by Wilming Weir in the moonlight, vows 
his love for Emilia: ^ 

* Evan Harrington; 349. ' Sandra Belloni, 152. 



256 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

"Having said it, he was screwed up to feel it as nearly as 
possible, such virtue is there in uttered words." 

Edward Blancove is visited by the facile compunction 
that attacks Arthur Donnithorne and others of the kind: ^ 

"He closed, as it were, a black volume, and opened a new and 
bright one. Young men easily fancy that they may do this, and 
that when the black volume is shut the tide is stopped. Saying 'I 
was a fool,' they believe they have put an end to the foolishness." 

Outside of Eliot and Meredith, the best examples of the 
youthful sentimental egoist are Thackeray's George Os- 
borne, and Trollope's Crosbie. The latter argues him- 
self into a state of innocence over his desertion of Lily Dale 
by soliloquizing that he did not deserve her, could not 
make her happy, and was bound to tell the truth, which, 
however painful, was always best.^ 

A word might be vouchsafed for this trait in low life, us- 
ually brushed lightly by the novelist. Dale of Allington is 
a great man in the market town, "laying down the law as 
to barley and oxen among men who usually knew more 
about barley and oxen than he did." Squire Cass, a per- 
son of some importance, "had a tenant or two, who com- 
plained of the game to him quite as if he had been a lord.'* 
Craig looks to Mrs. Poyser "like a cock as thinks the 
sun's rose o' purpose to hear him crow." ^ And Robert 

1 Rhoda Fleming, 149. Cf. Victor Radnor, who "intended impressing himself 
upon the world as a factory of ideas." Also Sir Willoughby,-who can account 
for Laetitia's refusal of him only by the reflection, — "There's a madness comes 
over women at times, I know." 

2 He also visualizes himself as a Don Juan, Lothario, Lovelace, and thinks, 
"Why should not he be a curled darling as well as another?" He is consequently 
hurt and astonished when, after the event, his disarming confession, "I know 
I've behaved badly," was met by the unsympathetic agreement, "Well, yes, 
I'm afraid you have." 

' Cf. the whole motif of Rostand's Chanticler. 



TYPES 257 

Armstrong says of Master Gammon, — "There's nothing 
to do, which is his busiest occupation, when he's not in- 
terrupted at it." 

Then there are the unsentimental egoists, attached to 
the selfish and domineering wing of egoism. They are less 
amenable to satire, being less deceptive by nature, and 
more prone to tyranny and cruelty, thereby deserving re- 
buke without humor. This class is represented by Paul 
Dombey, Barnes Newcome, Tom Tulliver, and others 
from the author of the last. This is another favorite type 
with Eliot, the self-willed sharing honors with the self- 
indulgent. Grandcourt "meant to be master of a woman 
who would have liked to master him, and who perhaps 
would have been capable of mastering another man." 
Tito Melema "felt that Romola was a more unforgiving 
woman than he had imagined; her love was not that sweet, 
clinging instinct, stronger than all judgments, which, he 
began to see now, made the great charm of a wife." Har- 
old Transome, who "had a padded yoke ready for the neck 
of every man, woman, and child that depended on him," 
makes the alarming discovery about Esther that a light- 
ning "shot out of her now and then, which seemed the sign 
of a dangerous judgment; as if she inwardly saw something 
more admirable than Harold Transome. Now, to be per- 
fectly charming, a woman should not see this." Meredith 
portrays this irresponsible selfishness in Roy Richmond, 
Lord Ormont, and Lord Fleetwood; and defines it in Sir 
Austin's Pilgrim's Scrips which says that sentimentalists 
"are they who seek to enjoy without incurring the Im- 
mense Debtorship for a thing done." ^ 

1 Sentimentalism is further described as " a happy pastime and an import- 
ant science to the timid, the idle, and the heartless; but a damning one to them 
who have anything to forfeit." Richard Feverd, 220. 



258 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

.■\iiother and more passive type of the egoist is the epi- 
curean. He asks only to have his tastes gratified, and, be- 
ing devoted to material comfort, demands little of the 
world but material supplies. Epicurianism is marked by 
an indulgent good-humor so long as it is itself indulged, 
and when not gratified sinks into nothing worse than 
peevishness. Though it may be a deplorable trait, it is 
not a ridiculous one in itself, and is therefore satirized only 
when in conjunction with something that produces an in- 
congruity. The constant stream of satire directed against 
the epicurean clergy, for instance, is due to the sense of an 
incompatibility between a profession which inculcates sim- 
plicity at least, if not actual asceticism, and a regime of 
sensuous indulgence. Those who are legitimately worldly, 
as for example the patrician triad depicted by Thackeray, — 
Miss Crawley, the Countess of Kew, and Madam Bern- 
stein, — may not be admirable, but neither are they absurd. 

In Adrian Harley we have the egoistic epicure in all his 
plump perfection. Meredith hastens, however, to excul- 
pate the founder of the hedonistic philosophy: ^ 

"Adrian was an epicurean; one whom Epicurus would have 
scourged out of his garden, certainly; an epicurean of our mod- 
em notions." 

The combination in him of cynic, self-pamperer, and 
Sir Oracle forms a type which Meredith especially delights 
to dishonor, because its own smugness puts a splash of 

1 In an access of particularly malicious realism, Meredith calls attention to a 
region that was already " a trifle prominent in the person of the wise youth, 
and carried, as it were, the flag of his philosophical tenets in front of him." 
He is also described as having " an instinct for the majority, and, as the world 
invariably found him enlisted in its ranks, his appellation of wise youth was 
acquiesced in without irony." Again, — '' discreetness, therefore, was instructed 
to reign at the .Abbey. Under Adrian's able tuition the fairest of its domesucs 
acquired that virtue." 



TYPES 259 

color, as it were, on the bull's-eye and renders it more 
conspicuous. Not only is the epicure pierced with many 
an ironic shaft, but the Wise Youth is made the veritable 
error incarnate of the Feverel tragedy. For it was his 
Fabian policy, dictated and obeyed, that knotted still 
more the sad tangle, just as it was Austin Wentworth's 
simple manly directness that proved the knot could be cut 
easily by prompt and silent action. Indeed, in these two 
characters we see exemplified throughout the story the 
false Florimell of vanity and the true Florimell of pride, — 
the pride that is too proud to do an unworthy or debasing 
deed, and the vanity that can counterfeit successfully un- 
til confronted by the genuine reality. 

Egoism within bounds is a perfectly sane and rational 
thing, but to keep it within bounds is exceedingly difficult. 
When given over to an irrational rule it grows into fanat- 
icism. For the fanatic owes his monomania to the force 
of a strong personality, which engenders the unmitigated 
assurajice of being right, plus the perverted reasoning 
that characterizes the sentimentalist. He is always fool- 
ish, but seldom a hypocrite, as his deception usually ex- 
tends to himself. His selfishness is of the opposite sort 
from the epicure's. What he seeks is not a soft berth and 
personal acquisitions, but a chance to impose his opinions 
on a misguided world, and to dominate over converts or 
subjects. In his milder moods he only dreams of happy 
schemes and far-reaching reforms, but when charged with 
energy his proselyting zeal tends to make him tyrannical. 

In some form or other he appears on the pages of almost 
every Victorian novelist. That the faddist is a favorite 
subject with Peacock is well known. Lytton gives a de- 
lightful contribution in the Uncle Jack of The CaxtonSy 
whose "bewitching enthusiasm and convincing calcula- 



26o SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

tion" led him into alluring speculations that invariably 
proved disastrous to the members of his family. Not fi- 
nancial but missionary and philajithropic zeal animate the 
souls immortalized by Dickens, — Mrs. Jellyby and Mrs. 
Pardiggle, Reverend Honeythunder, and the Snagsbys. 
Bronte and Kingsley specialize in the religious bigot. The 
former satirizes the Jesuit in ViUette^ but not St. John 
Rivers, who is drawn seriously. The latter gives a vivid 
picture in his INIrs. Locke and the Calvinistic preachers, 
and another, of the opposite type, done with more par- 
tisanship and less sympathy, in the vicar and Argemone 
in Yeast. Trollope is more interested in the sociological 
zealot. He introduces him as the author, Mr. Popular 
Sentiment; the "Barchester Brutus," Mr. John Bold; 
the demagogue, Ontario Moggs, son of a capitalist, and 
advocate of labor unions; and some characters in the Par- 
Hamentary Series. A sample from a harangue of Moggs 
will serve to illustrate the fair-mindedness that accom- 
panies Trollope's love of parody. He quotes and then 
comments: ^ 

"'Gendemen, were it not for strikes, this would be a country 
in which no free man could live. By the aid of strikes we will 
make it the Paradise of the labourer, and Elysium of industry, 
an Eden of artisans.' There was much more of it, but the 
reader might be fatigued were the full flood of Mr. Moggs's 
oratory to be let loose upon him. And through it all there was 
a germ of truth, and a strong dash of true, noble feeling; but 
the speaker had omitted as yet to leam how much thought 
must be given to a germ of truth before it can be made to pro- 

' Ralph ihi Heir, Si. He dissects him a little further, — "How far the real phi- 
lanthropy of the man may have been marred by an uneasy and fatuous ambi- 
tion; how far he was carried away by a feeling that it was better to make 
speeches at the Cheshire Cheese than to apply for payment of money due to 
his father, it would be \tiy hard for us to decide." 



TYPES 261 

duce fruit for the multitude. And then, in speaking, grand 
words come so easily, while thoughts — even little thoughts — 
flow so slowly!" 

Mrs. Proudie herself is above all a politician, and justi- 
fies her existence by turning her religious bigotry into the 
channel of ecclesiastical polity, a procedure that well might 
cause the gentle bishop to quake: ^ 

"When Mrs. Proudie began to talk about the souls of the 
people he always shook in his shoes. She had an eloquent way 
of raising her voice over the word souls that was qualified to 
make any ordinary man shake in his shoes." 

She rejoices in an opportunity to condone with a mem- 
ber of the Clerical Opposition over a disappointment she 
has done her best to bring upon it: ^ 

"'For, after all, Mrs. Arabin, what are the things of this 
world? — dust beneath our feet, ashes between our teeth, grass 
cut for the oven, vanity, vexation, and nothing more!' — well 
pleased with which variety of Christian metaphors, Mrs. Prou- 
die walked on, still muttering, however, something about worms 
and grubs, by which she intended to signify her own species 
and the Dumbello and Grantly sects of it in particular." 

George Eliot's zealots, — Dinah Morris, Savonarola, 
Felix Holt, Daniel Deronda, are not ridiculed, except for 
some sarcastic repartee put into the mouths of Mrs. Poyser 
and Esther Lyon. Nor is the pseudo-scholar Casaubon, 
though he is described as having a soul that "went on 
fluttering in the swampy ground where it was hatched, 
thinking of its wings and never flying," and on a certain 
occasion, as slipping "again into the library, to chew a cud 
of erudite mistake about Cush and Mizraim." 

1 Last Chronicles of Barset, I, 108. * Ibid., 449. 



262 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

Of all fanatics, those who are obsessed by an educational 
theory are perhaps the most dangerous, as they impose 
their systems on flexible youth, the result being often an 
orchard of lamentably bent twigs. Two exponents of op- 
posite divisions of this type are Gradgrind, who aimed at 
the elimination of the imagination, and Feverel, who pro- 
posed to circumvent the element of original sin in human 
composition, by the policy of watchful waiting and abso- 
lute dictation. Both come to grief through the failure 
of facts to support their philosophies; but Dickens in his 
optimism makes Gradgrind a wiser man through being 
a sadder, while Meredith in his realism keeps Feverel 
blandly unconscious and untaught by a lesson that would 
have pierced any heart protected by a less impervious 
pericardium. 

All the materials that go Into the warp and woof of hu- 
man nature are thus seen to be so commingled and inter- 
woven that even the degree of separation necessary for 
examination is almost impossible. And when this dis- 
section is after a fashion accomplished, it is the less useful, 
in that the same strand is discovered to change its color 
and texture from one section to another. Deception is 
here a vice and there a virtue. Folly is here amusing and 
there horrifying. Egoism is here absorbent and there en- 
croaching. There are sentimental epicures and unsenti- 
mental epicures and ascetic sentimentalists. There are 
vulgar snobs and refined snobs and a vulgarity that is not 
snobbish. All of these are criticizably absurd at times, and 
yet the same things may at others be admirable or pathetic 
or tragic. Frequently the sublime and the ridiculous ad- 
vance on the one step that separates them, and merge 
their diverse identities. 

A peculiarly good illustration of the qualified nature of 



TYPES 263 

human traits, in view of which we are wise to discard nouns 
in favor of adjectives for identifying purposes, is furnished 
by Trollope's Lady Carbury. She is hypocritical in her 
wire-pulling intrigues, but not a hypocrite, for her pre- 
tenses are not utterly hollow; her sincerity is about on 
the average level, and her industry much above it. She is 
sentimentally foolish in her maternal devotion to a son 
who has no possible claim on toleration, much less on a 
patient and sacrificing indulgence, but not a fool, for her 
cleverness is indisputable. She is as tyrannic to her daugh- 
ter as lenient to her son, but not a selfish egoist, for she 
refuses to take advantage of Mr. Broune's offer of mar- 
riage, especially tempting to her harassed soul, on the al- 
truistic grounds that she and her family would be more of 
a burden than a comfort to Mr. Broune. She is not a vul- 
gar snob, but her respect for aristocratic connections is not 
always marked by refinement of method in her pursuit of 
them. Much of all this is unconsciously betrayed in the 
series of three letters to editors and critics, bespeaking 
their good offices for her new book. Criminal Queens. The 
epistles are tactfully adjusted to their respective recipients. 
To Mr. Broune, of 'The Morning Breakfast Tahle^ she is 
intimately confiding and begs frankly for a lift, while 
pointing out the attractive features of her volume: ^ 

"The sketch of Semiramis is at any rate spirited, though 
I had to twist it about a little to bring her in guilty. Cleopatra, 

1 The Way We Live Now, 1-2. In this connection we are also informed that 
" She did not fall in love, she did not wilfully flirt, she did not commit herself; 
but she smiled and whispered, and made confidences and looked out of her 
own eyes into men's eyes as though there might be some mysterious bond be- 
tween her and them — if only mysterious circumstances would permit it. But 
the end of it all was to induce some one to do something which would cause a 
publisher to give her good payment for indifferent writing, or an editor to be 
lenient when, upon the merits of the case, he should have been severe." 



264 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

of course, I have taken from Shakespeare: what a wench she 
was! I could not quite make Julia a queen; but it was impos- 
sible to pass over so piquant a character. * * * Marie 
Antoinette I have not quite acquitted. It would be uninterest- 
ing, — perhaps untrue. I have accused her lovingly, and have 
kissed when I have scourged. I trust the British public will 
not be angry because I do not whitewash Caroline, especially 
as I go along with them altogether in abusing her husband. " 

To Mr. Booker, of The Literary Chronicle^ she is gently 
menacing, reminding him that she has engaged to review 
his New Tale of a Tub for The Morning Breakfast Table; * 

"Indeed, I am about it now, and am taking great pains 
with it. If there is anything you wish to have specially said 
as to your view of the Protestantism of the time, let me know. 
I should like you to say a word as to the accuracy of my his- 
torical details, which I know you can safely do." 

To Mr. Alf, of The Evening Pulpit^ of whom she has rea- 
son to be afraid, her candor assumes a more impersonal and 
business-like air. She alludes to a recent caustic criticism 
in the Pulpit of some poor poetic wretch who well de- 
served it: 

"I have no patience with the pretensions of would-be poets 
who contrive by toadying and underground influences to get 
their volumes placed on every drawing-room table. * * * 
Is it not singular how some men contrive to obtain the reputa- 
tion of popular authorship without adding a word to the liter- 
ature of their country worthy of note 1 It is accomplished by 
unflagging assiduity in the system of puffing. To pufi^ and to 
get one's self puffed have become different branches of a new 

^This proves efficacious, since Mr. Booker, though "an Aristides among re- 
viewers," cannot resist the bait of a favorable notice of his Tale, "even though 
written by the hand of a female literary charlatan, and he would have no com- 
punction as to repaying the service by fulsome praise in The Literary Chronicle" 



TYPES 265 

profession. Alas, me! I wish I might find a class open in which 
lessons could be taken by such a poor tyro as myself. " 

As for herself, she expects ruthless severity, but trusts 
that her work has some merits. In any case, no amount of 
editorial flagellating can discount her personal admiration 
for this particular editor. Truly, she is all things to all 
men, — a policy, however, for which she might claim a 
certain Scriptural precedent of high authority. 



PART IV 
CONCLUSIONS 



CHAPTER I 

RELATIONSHIPS 

To call a man a satirist or a satirical writer is to say 
something about him, certainly. It is, however, a piece 
of information which can be nothing more than a curiosity 
of literature so long as it remains an isolated fact. Al- 
though we are for the time being interested in a group of 
novelists primarily as satirists, we cannot even under- 
stand them as such, much less come to any fuller com- 
prehension, unless we also view the satirists as novelists, 
as artists, as human beings. 

These relationships extend on the Internal side, so to 
speak, into such matters as quantity, quality, and range; 
and on the external, into the larger realms of the two sa- 
tiric factors — criticism and humor — and thence into the 
neighboring domains of pessimism and tragedy, comedy 
and wit, realism and romanticism, emotion and intellect, 
and idealism. In none of these things, of course, can we do 
more than indicate briefly the effect they may have upon 
satire, or satire upon them. 

Those who have furnished the largest amount of sat- 
ire, — proportionately, as it happens, both to their own to- 
tal production, and to the satiric production of others, — 
are Peacock, Dickens, Butler, and Meredith. But when 
it comes to quality, — tested by subtlety of wit, self-com- 
mand, justice as to objects, and moderation of amount, — 
the only one to remain on the preeminent list is Meredith. 

At the other extreme we find the same overlapping as 

269 



270 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

to quantity and quality. The smallest satiric amounts 
come from Bronte, Reade, and Gaskell, but, while the first 
two are correspondingly inferior in quality, the last is 
promoted several degrees up the qualitative scale, by rea- 
son of her lack of flourish, and the deft sureness of her 
touch. The low place she leaves vacant belongs by desert 
to Kingsley, who, like Bronte and Reade, never learned 
to solve the satirist's problem, — to trifle without being 
trivial. Frivolity, to be sure, was never a besetting sin of 
the Victorians, but in their earnestness they were prone to 
the opposite fault, and are occasionally caught beating a 
big satiric drum when softer notes would be more effective. 
Neither are any on the entire list guilty of downright in- 
sincerity, but the less successful ones are sometimes be- 
trayed by partisan zeal, acrimonious temper, or unsound 
judgment, into more or less injustice. This is true to some 
extent of Peacock, Dickens, and Thackeray, as well as of 
those just mentioned. 

In range of interest Dickens easily leads, followed by 
Meredith and Trollope. From Oliver 'Twist to Edwin 
Drood, this satirist spreads his attacks over more ground, 
and lays about him in more different directions than does 
any one else. With the exception of the Church, no pos- 
sible word of importance is omitted from his satiric lexi- 
con. His tastes in the ridiculous are catholic, and scarcely 
a satirizible subject languishes under his neglect. The 
other writers are more or less specialists in their chosen 
fields. 

As to the effect on the satiric product of a versatile mind, 
a prolific pen, or preoccupation with other affairs, no de- 
duction seems possible. Lytton, Kingsley, and Butler 
were versatile and prolific both, to a degree. Thackeray 
and Trollope were prolific within a more limited range. 



RELATIONSHIPS 27I 

Those most exclusively novelists were Disraeli, Dickens, 
and Bronte, but those to produce the most novels were 
Trollope, Lytton, Dickens, and Meredith. Lytton and 
Disraeli had more outside interests and underwent more 
varieties of social and political experience than any of 
their successors, though Trollope and Kingsley had occu- 
pations and avocations outside those of literature. 

All these internal relationships have some significance 
but much less than the external ones. They deal primarily 
with accomplishments, which have their value chiefly as 
emanating from character and so defining it, whereas the 
various elements of which character itself is composed are 
in the nature of vital statistics in the life spiritual. Of these 
elements those most closely related to satire are naturally 
its constituents, though they may exist independently of 
it. Although satire is a form of criticism, it does not 
follow that those writers who are most consistently satir- 
ical have the most widely or deeply critical attitude to- 
ward life in general. Such fundamental criticism branches 
out into two philosophies: the hopeless, or pessimistic, 
shading off into flippant cynicism or bitter misanthropy; 
and the hopeful, or unsentimentally optimistic, which is 
the basis of all dynamic idealism. For whithersoever the 
idealist may tend, he certainly cannot start from a point 
of uncritical satisfactian with things as they are. Locke 
may have made some errors regarding the human under- 
standing, but he was eminently correct in identifying the 
stimulus to action, not with a vision of fulfilled desire, 
but with the sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go. We 
must be driven out before we can be led on, but the driv- 
ing process once being inaugurated, we make it more dig- 
nified and endurable by conceiving a goal upon which our 
endeavors may be focussed. 



272 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

To the philosophy of pessimism no Victorian novelist 
was addicted. The phase of it current in the period just 
preceding was met by a prolonged, skeptical, British 
chuckle, beginning with our first novelist, who represents, 
indeed, in his own history the reaction from pensive mel- 
ancholy to humorous common sense. Peacock is speaking 
of being unhappy, and adds: ^ 

"To have a reason for being so would be exceedingly common- 
place: to be so without any is the province of genius: the art of 
being miserable for misery's sake, has been brought to great per- 
fection in our days; and the ancient Odessey, which held forth 
a shining example of the endurance of real misfortune, will give 
place to a modern one, setting out a more instructive picture 
of querulous impatience under imaginary evils.** 

Lytton shared the fondness of Dickens and Thackeray 
for pathos, but none of them went further into the anat- 
omy of melancholy than some such comment as, — "Dig 
but deep enough, and under all earth runs water, under 
all life runs grief." ^ 

Thackeray muses on the theme of aspiration in a whim- 
sically pensive vein. Between the questions and the ex- 
clamation of the following excerpt are several instances 
of disappointment, related in his jocular mock-sympa- 
thetic tone: ^ 

" Succeeding ? What is the great use of succeeding ? Failing ? 
Where is the great harm? * * * Psha! These things appear 
as naught — when Time passes — ^Time the consoler — Time the 

^ Nightmare Abbey, 78. 

2 What Will He Do with It? Preface to Chap. IV, Bk. VI. 

^ Sketches and Travels: in London, 268. Cf. Taine's comment that Thackeray 
"does as a novelist what Hobbes does as a philosopher. Almost everjrwhere, 
when he describes fine sentiments, he derives them from an ugly source." Hist. 
of Eng. Lit., IV, 188. 



RELATIONSHIPS 273 

anodyne — Time the grey calm satirist, whose sad smile seems 
to say, Look, O man, at the vanity of the objects you pursue, and 
of yourself who pursue them." 

In the essay Of Adversity Bacon says, — "We see in 
needleworks and embroideries it is more pleasing to have 
a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have 
a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground." 
In so far as this can be granted, and applied to the novel, 
it would explain why George Eliot is more pleasing than 
Thackeray, for that is just the difference between them. 
Athwart the brilliant background of Vanity Fair fall the 
sinister shadows of the sordid little Puppets of the Show, — 
"the bullies, the bucks, the knaves, the quacks, the yokels, 
the tinselled dancers, the poor old rouged tumblers, and 
the light-fingered folk operating on the pockets of the rest." 
Behind Hayslope, Raveloe, and Middlemarch, the Floss 
and the Arno, hangs the curtain of Destiny, somber with 
pain, drudgery, sin and its wages. Yet over it plays a 
light shed around the characters as they appear upon the 
stage. It shines from Mrs. Poyser's kitchen and Mr. Ir- 
wine's study, from the parlors of the sisters nee Dodson 
and the Garth family, from Celia Chettam's nursery, the 
bar at the Rainbow, and the shops of Florence. Together 
these actors weave a pattern of mirth and amusement, — 
the incorrigible human defiance of the ache of Hfe and the 
agony of death. 

Dickens, (upon whose Hogarthian gloom Taine lays 
great stress), Reade, and Kingsley are as critical of society 
in the larger sense as Thackeray is in the smaller, and as 
Eliot and Trollope are of human nature. Meredith has 
no illusions about any of these things, and Butler comes 
nearer than any to an unqualified pessimism. But even 



274 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

he does not attain it. They all escape through the avenue 
of satire, sometimes reinforced by action, — both being 
efficacious means of getting melancholia out of the system. 
Nowhere does Browning speak more as a Britisher than 
when he declares rage to be the right thing in the main, 
and acquiescence the vain and futile. 

Pessimism, to be consistent, would express itself in terms 
of tragedy. Out of approximately one hundred Victorian 
novels of the realistic type, — for romantic tragedy cannot 
be taken as an index of the writer's philosophy, — less than 
ten per cent can be classified as tragic in outcome; and in 
none of these is the catastrophe inclusive, overwhelming, 
or a perversion of justice. Of these the largest proportion 
belongs to Eliot and Meredith, but 'T'he Mill on the Floss is 
the solitary complete tragedy. Rhoda Fleming and Middle- 
march are almost as truly tales of comic tragedians as Rom- 
ola, Richard Feverely and An Amazing Marriage are of 
tragic comedians. On the other hand, tragedy of this miti- 
gated sort is not inconsistent with idealism, which in turn 
is the constructive side of criticism. While it is too much, 
as Lytton reminds us in Kenelm Chillingly , to expect both 
critical and constructive ability to be conspicuous in the 
same individual, nevertheless the criticism which is con- 
tent to note a deflection from an ideal without even a tacit 
recognition of the ideal deflected from, is mere childish 
fretting over the personally irritating. Of this there is lit- 
tle in the nineteenth century. The Victorians may have 
had some of the unpardonable disregard for reality of 
which they have been accused,^ but they never could be 
accused of a disregard for ideality. None of the novelists, 

1 "Of this national disease, this indifference to reaUty, the main bulk of nine- 
teenth century English fiction has died already or must soon be dead." Gosse: 
Eng. Lit. in the Nineteenth Cent. 221. 



RELATIONSHIPS 275 

indeed, announced an ecstatic premonition of some far-off, 
divine event toward which the whole creation moves; but 
they would all have asserted, even if under their breath, 
— Eppur si muove. This assertion is none the less emphatic 
and possibly the more artistic, by being made indirectly, 
through dramatic presentation of characters. Harley 
L'Estrange, Egremont, Mr. Hale, Mrs. Brandon, Mark 
Tapley, Sidney Carton, Mr. Eden, Jane Eyre, Alton 
Locke, Mr. Harding, Dinah Morris, Dorothea Brooke, 
Austin Feverel, Vittoria, Beauchamp, — these all testify 
in their various ways, by noble aspiration, generous self- 
effacement, sensitive response to duty, devotion to prin- 
ciple, courage in daring and in endurance, to the existence 
of a something in the human soul that is stemming the tide 
of its selfishness, cowardice, and cruelty, and may in time 
work out a salvation for the race. 

A recognition of ideality does not imply, however, a 
lack of proper concern for reality, or the reverse. To make 
the two diametrical opposites is to confuse issues. As 
Meredith says, — "Between realism and idealism there is 
no natural conflict. This completes that." He adds the 
caution that only the great can be truly idealistic, and con- 
cludes, — "One may find as much amusement in a kaleido- 
scope as in a merely idealistic writer." ^ The direct coun- 
terpart to realism is romanticism; and the Victorians did 
not scruple to make free use of this alliance with the im- 
probable, whenever the actual would fail to secure the de- 
sired dramatic effect. Coincidences abound,— convenient 
returns of the absent and departures of the troublesome, 
discoveries of kinship and inheritance of fortunes, narrow 
escapes and astonishing reunions. Yet there is also some 
conscious defense of the practice. Lytton has one of his 

1 Letters, I, 156. 



276 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

characters, confessing her disappointment in the fiction 
of the time (the early thirties), conclude, — ^ 

"These novelists make the last mistake you would suppose 
them guilty of, they have not enough romance in them to paint 
the truths of society. * * * By the way, how few know what 
natural romance is: so that you feel the ideas in a book or play 
are true and faithful to the characters they are ascribed to, why 
mind whether the incidents are probable?" 

Trollope reinforces the idea: ^ 

"No novel is worth anything, for the purpose either of trag- 
edy or comedy, unless the reader can sympathise with the char- 
acters whose names he finds upon the pages. * * * If 
there be such truth, I do not know that a novel can be too sensa- 
tional." 

And Meredith expresses on at least two occasions his 
opinion of the value of realism. An embittered authoress 
determined to make her next novel a reflex of her bitter- 
ness. Considering that type, she — ^ 

"* * * mused on their soundings and probings of poor 
humanity, which the world accepts as the very bottom-truth 
if their dredge brings up sheer refuse of the abominable. The 
world imagines those to be at our nature's depths who are im- 
pudent enough to expose its muddy shallows. * * * Jt may 
count on popularity, a great repute for penetration. It is true 
of its kind, though the dredging of nature is the miry form of 
art. When it flourishes we may be assured we have been over- 
enameUing the higher forms." 

^ Godolphin, 106-7. Cf. Pelham, 106 fF. for a long discussion of the novel. 

2 Autobiography, 206. But on another page he describes the sense of intimate 
reality he had of his beloved Barsetshire, and how vivid was the mental map 
he had made of it. 

* Diana of the Crosszvays, 275. 



RELATIONSHIPS 277 

In another volume he is describing the humorist's idea 
ofit:i 

"I conceive him to indicate that the reaHstic method of a con- 
scientious transcription of all the visible, and a repetition of all 
the audible, is mainly accountable for our present branfulness, 
and for that prolongation of the vasty and the noisy, out of 
which, as from an undrained fen, steams the malady of same- 
ness, our modem malady.'* 

It might seem that a romanticism so prevalent and 
avowed would not be the best medium for satire, which is 
supposed to be realistic in the sense that it deals with the 
actual. But since satire is directed against persons rather 
than circumstances, it is in no danger so long as the ro- 
mancing is confined to the situations, and the characters 
are kept to the plane of reality, — as is the case, with a few 
easily recognizable exceptions, in the Victorian novel. 
That the difficulty of truthfulness is one excuse for indul- 
gence in the easier romantic method, is admitted by Eliot: ^ 

"The pencil is conscious of a delightful facility in drawing a 
griffin — ^the longer the claws and the larger the wings, the better; 
but that marvellous facility which we mistook for genius is apt 
to forsake us when we want to draw a real, unexaggerated lion." 

But in Victorian fiction neither griffins nor lions are in 
much evidence. The total personnel is fairly well sym- 
bolized (with the addition of a few more of the nobler 
brutes than are admitted by Thackeray) in the Overture 
to 'The NewcomeSj wherein the "farrago of old fables'* 
pictures a crow, a frog, an ox, a wolf, a fox, an owl, and a 
few lambs, but only the skin of a lion, — and that serving 
as cloak for a donkey. The romantico-realistic solution, 
therefore, forms probably the most satisfactory base for the 

1 The Egoist, 2. 2 Adam Bede, I, 268. 



278 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

dissolving of the critical-humorous acid and the precipita- 
tion of satire. It secures a maximum of pungency with a 
minimum of flatness, and is perfectly safe to take. 

As satire ramifies on the critical side into pessimism, 
tragedy, idealism, and the cognate matters of romanticism 
and realism, so it extends on the humorous into the comic, 
the witty, and the philosophic amusement known as a 
sense of humor. 

Of those who launch their satire on the comic current, 
Dickens is again first. He is, as Taine remarks, the most 
railing and the most jocose of English authors. Speaking 
of his sportiveness, the French critic adds that "he is not 
the more happy for all that," and uses him to point the 
double moral: that "English wit consists in saying very 
jocular things in a solemn manner," and "The chief ele- 
ment of the English character is its want of happiness." * 
This last may account for the fact that none of the novel- 
ists is abreast of Dickens in fun-making. Indeed, the only 
others to deserve mention are Lytton, Trollope, and 
Thackeray, and the last in his extra-novel productions. 
Those, on the other hand, who are most endowed with wit 
are Meredith, Butler, and Peacock, with George Eliot not 
quite to be omitted. More important than comicality or 
wit is the sense of humor, for while they are largely in the 
nature of devices whereby the object is made ex post facto 
ludicrous to others, it is the quality which enables the critic 
himself to perceive the absurdity, and is thus the sine 
qua non of his being a satirist at all. It is Meredith who 
excels here, and this excellence, combined with his gift of 
wit and his restrained use of the comic, lifts him to a posi- 
tion of superiority on the humorous as well as the critical 
side. George Eliot also has the sense of proportion which 

* History 0/ English Literature, V, 140. 



RELATIONSHIPS 279 

is the basis of humor, and so, to a less degree, have Trol- 
lope and Mrs. Gaskell. At the other extreme stand Reade, 
Kingsley, and Charlotte Bronte, with very little perspec- 
tive or artistic detachment. The unfortunate thing about 
them is that they did not dare be as serious in expression 
as they were in temperament. Their humor does not bub- 
ble up from a natural spring but is manipulated through 
an artificial fountain, with varying effects of spontaneity. 
Lytton, Disraeli, and Thackeray had some youthful smart- 
ness of this sort to outgrow, and to a large extent they did 
it. But these others never did; and Reade especially has 
moments of a truculent pertness and shrill sarcasm that 
do an injustice to the really fine spirit of his work. 

That there are more of these fitful gleams and partial 
visions than of an inclusive view of the cosmos, is not as- 
tonishing. The wide, clear outlook requires not only an 
infinite radius but a lens of powerful magnitude. To 
train a small telescope on a remote object achieves noth- 
ing. None of the novelists evinces the cosmic perspec- 
tive that reports back in terms of a universe. That, 
indeed, is the function of the seer, — poet, prophet, or phi- 
losopher. But if only these see life in all its panoramic 
vastness, there are others who at least splash at a ten- 
league canvas, and insist on having real figures to draw 
from, whether saint or sinner. These have no use for the 
trivial and frivolous, yet they know better than to scorn the 
small and unpretentious. They delight in spaciousness, 
but are not enamored with mere bulk or nebulous vague- 
ness. Such are our satiric novelists at their best, those 
among them ranking highest whose philosophical humor 
is greatest in proportion to their love of the comic, and who 
are granted sufficient wit to transmute their perception 
of the absurd into effective expression. 



28o SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

The value of a sense of humor lies largely in a certain 
duality about it, in that it springs from the intellectual 
side of one's nature and is reinforced by the emotional. 
It thus brings into play both of the supplementary factors, 
and in so doing tests them both. To have a sense of humor 
is an intellectual asset, but the enjoyment of it, which is 
inseparable from its possession, is an emotional state. 
This combination, as well as the order of procedure, af- 
fects the quality of the resulting satire. The best satir- 
ists are those most fully developed in head and heart, with 
the proviso that they keep the latter subordinate to the 
former, by making reason the final tribunal, and award- 
ing the decision to intellectual judgment rather than emo- 
tional prejudice. 

Among our novelists the greatest in other things is 
greatest in this also. The most generous endowment 
along both lines, and the nicest balance between them 
is Meredith's. With him are again associated Eliot and 
Butler. Nor is it by accident that we find the lowest ex- 
treme of the list still occupied by the same representatives. 
The test of course is one of control. It is not that Reade, 
Kingsley, and Charlotte Bronte are deficient in intel- 
lection. They do considerable thinking and sometimes 
reach conclusions that are rational and true. But when 
truth and rationality do dominate, it is by a happy good 
fortune rather than the inevitability that marks the ratio- 
cination of a capable mind. This last cannot guarantee 
infallibility, to be sure, but the errors are reduced to a min- 
imum, and moreover left open to correction. This is the 
case with Meredith, Eliot, and Butler, in whom a warm 
and sincere emotion is directed by the light of reason. 

It might seem at first sight that Butler ran more to head 
than heart; but in this as in other things he was like Swift, 



RELATIONSHIPS 28l 

having the faculty of stating in cold logic what he had con- 
ceived in hot wrath. In such a temperament the feelings 
are more likely to be turned against those responsible for 
misery than toward the victims, thus producing a nega- 
tive effect, with the positive side left to our inference. The 
only one whose work is entirely unemotional is Peacock, 
and even he waxes warm over the exploitation of the help- 
less, and the crimes committed in the name of Progress. 
Aside from this he shines with a hard mental brilliance, — 
which, be it said, does not insure soundness of viewpoint, 
as no one on the whole list can surpass him in prejudice 
and injustice. 

George Eliot, admitted by all to have a better intellec- 
tual equipment than any of her predecessors, admired 
above others by Meredith because her fiction was "the 
fruit of a well-trained mind," herself says, "Our good de- 
pends on the quality and breadth of our emotion." ^ 
And again, "There is no escaping the fact that want of 
sympathy condemns us to a corresponding stupidity." ^ 
This realization that mental Inertness itself is the result 
of callous or defective emotion, and that these two ele- 
ments are not only inseparable but mutually dependent, 
is one secret of the fine quality of her satire. ^ It is the 
sheen on the surface of a deep current of sympathetic com- 

1 Middle-march, II, 275. In this story also occurs the exquisite passage on the 
theme of the second citation above: " If we had a keen feeling and vision of all 
ordinary human life, it would be like seeing the grass grow and hearing the 
squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which hes on the other side 
of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity." 

2 Daniel Deronda, III, 79. 

^ One of her biographers, G. W. Cooke, evidently holding to the old idea of 
satire, makes the opposite deduction, that "she is too much in sympathy with 
human nature to laugh at its folUes and its weaknesses. * * * The foibles 
of the world she cannot treat in the vein of the satirist." Not if this vein be 
restricted to the JuvenaUan and Popeian types, certainly. 



282 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

prehension. Never does she forget or cease to commiserate 
the great predicament of the human race, condemned to 
make bricks without straw, under a hard taskmaster, with 
little prospect of reward to encourage perseverance or sat- 
isfy an outraged sense of justice. Yet she is able to apply 
a few satiric goads, — not to the taskmaster, for he directs 
from behind the veil and is not subject to human asper- 
sions, nor to the weak or the blundering, but to the 
shirkers, the selfish, and those who demand more wage 
than a fair return for work done as well as possible under 
the circumstances. 

In 1902 Meredith wrote to his daughter-in-law: ^ 

"You have a liking for little phrases; I send you three: — Love 
is the renunciation of self. Passion is noble strength on fire. 
Fortitude is the one thing for which we may pray, because with- 
out it we are unable to bear the Truth." 

Here we have in juxtaposition, quite unconsciously no 
doubt, his obiter dicta on emotion and intellect. In many 
places he had already dramatized them. His egoists — Sir 
Austin, Sir Willoughby, Wilfred Pole - — are satirized be- 
cause they conceived love as self-assertion instead of re- 
nunciation; his epicures and snobs — Adrian Harley, Ed- 
ward Blancove, Ferdinand Laxley — because their passion 
was neither noble nor truly strong; his sentimentalists of 
every description, because they neither realized that Truth 
is the highest thing a man may keep, nor, whether high or 

1 Letters, II, 535. 

* A description of this youth concludes with a most significant epigram: "He 

was one of those who dehght to dally with gentleness and faith, * * * but 
the mere suspicion of coquetry and indifference plunged him into a fury of jeal- 
ous wrathfulness, and tossed so desirable an image of beauty before him that 
his mad thirst to embrace it seemed love. By our manner of loving we are 
known." Vittoria, 378. 



RELATIONSHIPS 283 

not, would they purchase it at the price of a disturbance to 
their equanimity. They might pray for the truth to be 
pleasant, but never for fortitude to endure it if it were 
otherwise. The apparent pessimism underlying the im- 
plication that the Truth is such as to demand courage for 
facing it, is counterbalanced by Diana's exclamation, 
"Who can really think, and not think hopefully?" 

None of Meredith's novels lacks an intellectual theme, 
and it was this that he himself regarded as most impor- 
tant. In the very last one he says: ^ 

"But the melancholy, the pathos of it, * * * have been 
sacrificed in the vain effort to render events as consequent to 
your understanding as a piece of logic, through an exposure of 
character!" 

At the same time he surpasses all others in the treatment 
of love. Contemporary readers, who had had to be con- 
tent with David and Dora, Pen and Laura, Rochester and 
Jane, Adam and Dinah, were vouchsafed a revelation, — 
which, however, they apparently did not at once appre- 
ciate, — in Richard and Lucy, Evan and Rose, Redworth 
and Diana, Dartrey and Nesta. To them all Meredith 
would say approvingly what he said warningly to a more 
unfortunate cavalier, — "You may love, and warmly love, 
so long as you are honest. Do not offend reason." ^ And 
in them all he illustrates the higher hedonism voiced by 
Lady Dunstane to her Tony, though from the negative 

^ An Amazing Marriage, 511. He adds, "Character must ever be a mystery, 
only to be explained in some degree by conduct; and that is very dependent 
upon accident." 

2 The Egoist, 4. It is in this connection that comedy "watches over sentimen- 
talism with a birch-rod." And it is at the end of the same story that she is 
"grave and sisterly" toward Clara and Vernon, though when she regards cer- 
tain others, "she compresses her Hps." 



284 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

side, — "The mistake of the world is to think happiness 
possible to the senses." ^ 

In addition to these, Meredith gives us pictures of other 
than the purely romantic devotion. There is the brood- 
ing tenderness of maturity for childhood and youth: of 
Sir Austin, Lady Blandish, Wentworth, and Mrs. Berry, 
for Richard and later, Lucy; of Clara Middleton for Cross- 
jay; of Rosamund for Beauchamp. This relationship is 
enhanced by a more intimate comradeship in the case of 
Lady Jocelyn and Rose, of Natalia Radnor and Nesta, and, 
in a happy-go-lucky fashion, of Roy Richmond and Harry. 
Nesta and Rose illustrate respectively Meredith's genuine 
and exquisite sentiment, and the omnipresent common 
sense which preserved it from sentimentality. When 
Nesta felt the first chill of the shadow on her life, — ^ 

"She sent forth her flights of stories in elucidation of the hid- 
den; and they were like white bird after bird winging to covert 
beneath a thundercloud; until her breast ached for the voice 
of the thunder: harsh facts: sure as she was of never losing her 
filial hold of the beloved." 

When Rose determined to appeal their case to her 
mother, she said to Evan, — ^ 

"You know she is called a philosopher; nobody knows how 
deep-hearted she is, though. My mother is true as steel. 
* * * When I say kindness, I don't mean any *0h, my 
child,' and tears and kisses and maundering, you know. You 
mustn't mind her thinking me a little fool." 

* Diana, 429. This is where Meredith and Browning are at one; — not only in 
the obvious resemblance of a cramped and obscure style, but in the agreement 
as to a fundamental idea — that the justification of love lies in its intellectual 
companionship and spiritual inspiration. 

^ One of Our Conquerors, 340. 

* Evan Harrington, 343. 



RELATIONSHIPS 285 

Then there is the sisterly attachment between Rhoda 
and Dahlia Fleming that leads Rhoda's puritanic nature 
into a dictatorial fanaticism as disastrous in its results as 
Sir Austin's; there is friendship masculine between Beau- 
champ and Dr. Shrapnel; and friendship feminine between 
Lady Dunstane and Diana. It is not that Meredith has 
a monopoly on the portrayal of human affection. Lytton 
has to his credit the Chillinglys ^ and the Caxtons; Gas- 
kell has the Gibsons; Dickens, Amy Dorrit, and Joe 
Gargary; Bronte, Caroline Helstone and her mother; Trol- 
lope, Lily Dale and hers; in Barry Lyndon, Thackeray gives 
us a base soul redeemed by love for a child, and in Colonel 
Newcome, Helen Pendennis, and Amelia Osborne, he 
presents a rather one-sided devotion, as does Eliot in 
Mrs. Transome, — though the latter does not feel called 
upon to exclaim, "By Heaven, it is pitiful, the bootless 
love of women for children in Vanity Fair!" But it is 
true that Meredith through the richness of his well- 
rounded nature was more able than the others to lift emo- 
tion fearlessly to a height of intensity, preserved there 
from any danger of a fall into bathos, because supported 
by intellect on the one hand and humor on the other. 

Any final alignment must be left flexible, because of the 
numerous factors in the test. Writers may excel in one way 
or another. When, however, the same author reappears 
on every count, it begins to look suspicious, and the sus- 
picion falls most heavily on Meredith. Others may come 
to the top twice or even thrice, but he alone is never 
wholly submerged, and is nearly always dominant. When 

1 The relation between Kenelm and his father is particularly fine, and is re- 
flected in the youth's remark to a comrade, — " If human beings despise each 
other for being young and foolish, the sooner we are exterminated by that su- 
perior race which is to succeed us on earth, the better it will be." 



286 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

Arnold Bennett declared that "Between Fielding and 
Meredith no entirely honest novel was written by anybody 
in England," he was merely following the twentieth cen- 
tury fad of depreciating the nineteenth, — any smart miss 
of sixteen being naturally more modern and sophisticated 
than her middle-aged mother. But in saying that "The 
death of George Meredith removes, not the last of the Vic- 
torian novelists, but the first of the modern school," he 
mentions an obvious fact, not really discredited by the 
chronological situation. This does not necessarily argue, 
be it said, that Meredith casts the forward shadow of com- 
ing events. His strong individuality did not lend itself to 
imitation, or even a prompt appreciation. Moreover, he 
had in him no germ either o^Jin de siecle decadence or of 
its flaunting iconoclasm. In his own mountain range he 
is simply a preeminent peak, as in theirs were Chaucer, 
Shakespeare, Dryden, Johnson. 

As to the lower plateaus and the foothills, the only thing 
of interest that develops through examining their juxta- 
position, is the resultant effect on Thackeray. While the 
others stand firmly up to their own normal height, mak- 
ing no attempt to add a cubit to their stature, he seems con- 
stantly to be taking thought; nor is it thought that leads 
to conclusions of much moment. "His depth," like Lyt- 
ton's, "is fathomable," but his air is of the most pro- 
found and meditative. It must be this, together with his 
Snobs and Vanity Fair (to both of which, acknowledg- 
ments are due) that has bewitched his critics and per- 
suaded his readers into ranking him as the foremost 
Victorian satirist. That he is among the elect is unde- 
niable, even to being "more long-winded than Horace 
and bitterer than Juvenal," ^ but to place him above 

* Cecil Headlam, in his Introduction to Selections from the British Satirists. 



RELATIONSHIPS 287 

them in any absolute way is to ignore the greater 
range of Dickens, the keener wit of Peacock and Butler, 
the rarer charm of Mrs. Gaskell and Trollope, and above 
all, the superior penetration and insight of George Eliot 
and Meredith. 

It is not necessary, however, to make all distinctions 
invidious and all comparisons odious. Individually and 
collectively the Victorian satirists are to be accepted with 
the ungrudging appreciation they deserve. The terribly 
exacting author of 'The New Machiavelli recognized 
in their endowment to us nothing but "emasculated 
thought," "a hasty trial experiment, a gigantic experi- 
ment of the most slovenly and wasteful kind," "a per- 
suasion that whatever is inconvenient or disagreeable to 
the English mind could be annihilated by not thinking 
about it," — all resulting in " the clipped and limited litera- 
ture that satisfied their souls." But there is consolation in 
the counter-discovery of Professor Sherman (in his Modern 
Literature) that there was a compensating economy, even 
in their failure: "Dickens, Kingsley, Reade, Mrs. Stowe, 
and the rest," he reminds us, "they did not seek to make 
the world over, but only to accomplish a few, simple things 
like abolishing slavery, sweat-shops. Corn Laws, the 
schools of Squeers, imprisonment for debt, the red tape 
of legal procedure, the belief in pestilence and typhoid as 
visitations of God — and all that sort of piddling amelio- 
ration." 

For this modest ambition, the Victorians found satire 
an effective means, and they proved they could turn it 
also to more purely artistic uses. Such as their achieve- 
ment was, they are doubtless content to rest in peace upon 
It, granting without jealousy to their illustrious successors 
whatever surpassing results they may be able to accomplish. 



CHAPTER II 

THE VICTORIAN CONTRIBUTION 

By the nineteenth century the general inheritance in 
ideas and methods had become so cumulatively rich and 
various that the chances for novelty might seem corre- 
spondingly meager. But there is always something new 
under the sun, and the process of amalgamating that modi- 
cum of newness with the great bulk of the old and estab- 
lished goes steadily and eternally on — except for abnormal 
phases of retrogression, or revolution — forming that cease- 
less change in changelessness we call history. The body 
of satiric tradition bequeathed to the Victorians underwent, 
accordingly, a normal amount of subtraction, addition, and 
modification, before being passed on to their successors. 

The endowment itself was large and comprehensive, 
including both substance and modes, as well as a supple- 
mentary current of criticism and interpretation. In 
none of these were the Victorians responsible for a trans- 
formation, yet none did they leave in statu quo. In form, 
however, a great change had recently occurred, operat- 
ing both positively and negatively, of which they were 
just in time to take advantage. The positive side of 
it was the development of the satiric novel in the 
preceding century, whereby the channel of fiction had 
already been accommodated to the satiric stream. This 
tendency was reinforced by the negative side, the aban- 
donment of English satire's one conventional outlet, 
the heroic couplet, which naturally diverted the current 

288 



THE VICTORIAN CONTRIBUTION 289 

Still more. The chance that made Byron not only a bril- 
hant climax to the long line that extended back to Hall 
and Lx)dge, and through them to Juvenal and Horace, 
but the conclusion as well, is one of the striking situations 
in the history of literature. This transference of the main 
bulk of satire from the medium of poetry to that of prose 
would probably have been accomplished in any case, for 
since the Romantic Triumph, poetry had been again de- 
voted to its true mission as the voice of imagination and 
spiritual vision, while at the same time the novel was find- 
ing a congenial sphere of action as a public forum for the 
discussion of all things from current events to a philosophy 
of life. Satire, being presumably a utilitarian product, 
would naturally be more suitably allied with fiction, a 
branch of Applied Art, than with the Pure Art of poetry. 
This union is advantageous for another reason, — the im- 
provement as to proportion. In verse satire the emphasis 
is on the satire; in satiric fiction, the former noun has been 
relegated to the qualifying function of the adjective. 
Since one of the perils of satire is over-emphasis, and since 
it can best avoid this peril by combination, the gain in this 
arrangement is obvious. As a matter of fact, pure, iso- 
lated satire is a non-existent abstraction, as is illustrated 
by the very circumstance of the origin of the name. The 
satura lanx was a dish of assorted fruit, and the primi- 
tive saturce which borrowed its name were the impromptu 
miscellanies in speech which constituted the social part 
of the old Roman Harvest Home. Lucilius and later Hor- 
ace, wanting a title for their running commentary on men 
and manners, found this conveniently ready. When Juve- 
nal adopted it, he had no notion of restricting the appli- 
cation: ^ 

1 Satire I, 85. 



290 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

"Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas, 
Gaudia, discursus, nostri est farrago libelli." 

With all these things is the modern novel also concerned, 
and it too finds some of them amenable to humorous treat- 
ment, and some only to serious. But so far as change is 
concerned, it occurs during this period more in substance 
than in form. Vice and Folly are still the nominal targets, 
whenever these traits seem to be a cause or an effect of 
Deceit.^ But they are somewhat altered in shape, in con- 
sequence of a more subtle analysis of their nature. The 
great discovery was made about the deceiver that he is 
quite as likely as not to be deceiving himself as well as 
others, — more than others, indeed, inasmuch as his very 
blindness renders him the more transparent. The world, 
moreover, growing in suspiciousness and incredulity, is 
the less easily deceived and the more able to detect the 
fraud, which thus reacts like a boomerang against its per- 
petrator. In the nineteenth century Pecksniff really was 
an archaism; and since Dickens no novelist has portrayed 
anything so bald as an unadulterated and unexplained 
hypocrite.^ The evolution in portrayal from the hypo- 
crite to the sentimentalist is perfectly illustrated by the 
difference between Pecksniff and Bulstrode. For the lat- 
ter we have only a little less sympathy than for Haw- 
thorne's Arthur Dimmisdale, in spite of his inferiority in 
fineness and ultimate courage. For we are shown the 
"strange, piteous conflict in the soul of this unhappy 
man, who had longed for years to be better than he 

1 One may generalize that the object of satire is deceit as one may call the sky 
blue. It does not always appear so. Indeed, it shows at times almost every 
other color. 

2 The motto oi Erewhon Revisited is from the Iliad: "Him do I hate, even as I 
hate hell fire, who says one thing, and hides another in his heart." But while 
Butler is vehement enough, he is less fervent than this would indicate. 



THE VICTORIAN CONTRIBUTION 29I 

was." ^ Even his prayer after becoming virtually a mur- 
derer is not really a piece of hypocrisy. "Does anyone 
suppose," asks Eliot, "that private prayer is necessarily 
candid — necessarily goes to the roots of action?" ^ 

George Eliot is, however, even more impressed with the 
auto-intoxication of optimism as it manifests itself in 
what might be called group psychology; and especially 
against a disregard of the law of cause and effect does she 
turn the shafts of her quiet irony. At the period when the 
Raveloe tale opens, — ^ 

"It was still that glorious war-time which was felt to be a 
peculiar favor of Providence toward the landed interest, and 
the fall of prices had not yet come to carry the race of small 
squires and yeomen down that road to ruin for which extrav- 
agant habits and bad husbandry were plentifully anointing 
their wheels." 

In pursuance of this comfortable philosophy, — 

"* * * ^[^g j^^}^ ^^g ^j^j drank freely, accepting gout and 
apoplexy as things that ran mysteriously in respectable families, 
and the poor thought that the rich were entirely in the right 
of it to lead a jolly life." 

In another story we are introduced to some " pious Dis- 
senting women, who took life patiently, and thought that 
salvation depended chiefly on predestination, and not at 
all on cleanliness." ^ In a higher social class this inno- 

^ Middlemarch, III, 264. 

" Ibid., 271. 

' Silas Marner, 26-27. In the same narrative the author uses the misfortunes 
of Godfrey to illustrate the truth that "Favorable Chance is the god of all men 
who follow their own devices instead of obeying a law they believe in. * * * 
The evil principle deprecated in that religion, is the orderly sequence by which 
the seed brings forth a crop after its kind." 91. 

« Felix Holt, I, 6. 



292 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

cence of the connection between effort and achievement 
leads to the fatuous complacency from which Gwendolen 
Harleth was aroused by the cruel shock of being told the 
truth about her musical abilities: ^ 

"She had moved in a society where everything, from low 
arithmetic to high art, is of the amateur kind politely supposed 
to fall short of perfection only because gentlemen and ladies 
are not obliged to do more than they like — otherwise they would 
probably give forth abler writings and show themselves more 
commanding artists than any the world is at present obliged to 
put up with." 

Another busy circle had made two important discov- 
eries: the superiority of the probable over the actual; and 
the advantage of a well-chosen nomenclature, whereby a 
taste for cruelty may be gratified by the simple device 
of calling it kindness. The first was made over the gossip 
about Bulstrode: ^ 

"Everbody liked better to conjecture how the thing was, than 
simply to know it; for conjecture soon became more confident 
than knowledge, and had a more liberal allowance for the incom- 
patible." 

The second developed in a later phase of the same 
affair: ^ 

"To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use 
an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did 
not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or 
their position; and a robust candour never waited to be asked 
for its opinion." 

It was because of this understanding of the limitless 
possibilities and universal prevalence of self-deception 

^Daniel Deronda, I, 395. ^Middlemarch, III, 288. ^ Ibid., 329. 



THE VICTORIAN CONTRIBUTION 293 

that Meredith was able to see the absurdity in egoism, 
which is the form of the malady induced by vanity. And 
this perception, as a modern critic observes, is the source 
of the contrast between two well-known egoists, — Sir 
Charles Grandison and Sir Willoughby Patterne: * 

"Both, superficially viewed, are the same type: a male para- 
gon before whom a bevy of women burn incense. But O the 
difference! Grandison is serious to his author, while Meredith, 
in skinning Willoughby alive like another Marsyas, is once and 
for all making the worship of the ego hateful." 

If one should ask, remembering the necessity for self- 
assertion in the exacting requirements of our human des- 
tiny, why so indispensable a thing as egoism should be ri- 
diculous, Meredith has his answer ready: ^ 

"Nay, to be an exalted variety is to come under the calm 
curious eye of the comic spirit, and to be probed for what you 
are." 

It is in "imposing figures" that the malign imps "love 
to uncover ridiculousness." Moreover,^ ^ 

"They dare not be chuckling while Egoism is valiant, while 
sober, while socially valuable, nationally serviceable. They 
wait." 

This turn of the satiric road from the hypocritical to the 
sentimental side of deceit marked a passage not only 
through traits of character, as already noted, but through 
the realm of institutions, where it might at first seem to be 
more out of place. But there is no reason why organiza- 
tions should not be as sentimental as the individuals of 

1 Burton, Masters of the English Novel, 290. 
* Essay on Comedy, 21. 
' Prelude to The Egoist. 



294 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

which they are composed. Indeed, so far as crowd psy- 
chology is in operation, they would be strengthened in 
self-deception by their very numbers. Whether this is 
the case or not, it is true that the tendency increased from 
Peacock to Butler to see in organized groups the absurdity 
of a complacent inefficiency. Not because they were fail- 
ures did English institutions come under the rod, but be- 
cause they flourished under a mighty delusion of success. 
Smug incompetence, self-satisfied futility, these were the 
gaping incongruities between pretense and performance 
that made tempting targets out of Society, Church, School, 
and State; and thitherward were trained the big and lit- 
tle guns of the satirists. 

There is, of course, an underlying cause of this trans- 
ference of interest from the more simple and patent hyp- 
ocrite to the more subtle and bafliing sentimentalist, 
individual and collective, and that is found in the spirit 
of investigation, analysis, probing beneath surfaces, — not 
new, to be sure, but newly operative on a large scale, — 
known as Science. Science in the intellectual world, and 
democracy in the political are the two forces which began 
in the nineteenth century the Conquest of Canaan that 
now in the twentieth they are gradually completing. 

That these two armies are allies is obvious. The end 
of democracy is an elevation of the whole plane of human 
life, — a leveling up and not the leveling down so feared 
by Carlyle and the conservative English opinion of the 
time. On the emotional and ethical side it is humanita- 
rian, but in itself it is a rational utilitarian principle. For 
this unquestionably practical end. Pure Science furnishes 
the justification, indeed, the initial premises, by showing 
the biology and psychology of all relationships, the re- 
spective effects of cooperation and antagonism in the nat- 



THE VICTORIAN CONTRIBUTION 295 

ural world, and kindred factors; while Applied Science 
supplies the means to that end by discoveries and inven- 
tions bearing on the amelioration and enhancement of 
living conditions. 

The recognition of such startling innovations would be 
inevitably slow, and their adoption still slower. But it is 
precisely in their ultimately successful struggle for admis- 
sion into the life and thought of the nineteenth century 
that we trace the evolution of the satire of the period, for 
the satiric reaction is merely one of the many reflections 
of that struggle. 

A humanitarian democracy has turned the old ex ca- 
thedra criticism into the forensic. The satirist has been 
obliged, as one commentator observes, to descend from 
the upper window whence he had been haranguing the mob 
below; he might have added, much of the mob itself has 
been admitted into the entrance halls at least of the 
great Administration Building of modern life. But mean- 
while the scientific method has added reason to emotion, 
so that while the democratic ideal was conceived in a 
rationalized sympathy, the stress has slipped more and 
more from the sympathetic to the rational element. None 
of the Victorians expressly would have denied the Moral 
Obligation to be Intelligent, but George Eliot, Meredith, 
and Butler were the first to make a real point of it. 
For by the latter half of the century the laboratory had 
come to be acknowledged as the colleague, if not the 
successor, of the pulpit, for implicit sermonizing as well 
as explicit instruction. And in the exercise of these func- 
tions, while the pulpit may indulge at times in a dec- 
orous ridicule, it is the laboratory that is the real, spon- 
taneous, unconscious satirist. When the solemn moral 
exhortation, Ought, was supplanted by the autocratic sci- 



296 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

entific command, Must — z/, the expression changed from 
earnest pleading to detached humor. For the moralist 
takes himself, his message, and his hearers, seriously, but 
the scientist has the indifferent attitude that if you refuse 
to obey, the consequences, serious indeed and not to be 
averted or escaped, will come, not in the guise of punish- 
ment or retribution, but through the inexorable operation 
of law. Accordingly, if you try to delude yourself into the 
supposition that you can evade the orders of nature, the 
joke is on you. 

While, therefore, in Victorian satire the old familiar 
faces of Society, State, and Church reappear, they are 
subjected to a new treatment, as the result of a new 
diagnosis. 

The School and the Press are the only additions to the 
time-honored objects, because of their more recent emer- 
gence into the light. The erection of the School into a pub- 
lic institution, together with the subsidence of the Church 
into the sphere of private life, marks indeed a radical 
change In viewpoint, — advancing from the assumption 
that the State must insure the religion of its citizens, let 
them be educated how they might (except that for a long 
time they had no choice but to take their secular learn- 
ing from the hands of the clergy) to the realization that 
if those responsible for the general welfare would provide 
for a general diffusion of enlightenment, the religious 
sentiment might safely be trusted to those whom it 
concerned, namely, the individuals themselves. In re- 
gard to all these institutions the old, sharply defined con- 
trast between guilty, satirized protagonist and indicting, 
satirical antagonist has disappeared. In its place is a de- 
cided tendency toward the fellow-member, fellow-citizen, 
fellow-sinner attitude, which at least has the advantage 



THE VICTORIAN CONTRIBUTION 297 

always held by the empiric knowledge of the insider over 
the deductive inference of the outsider. 

In the social field the most notable alteration is in the 
satire of woman. From the time of the Greek Simonides 
and the Hebrew epigrammatists, feminine foibles have 
been alluring game for masculine-made arrows. The 
shrew, the gossip, the blue-stocking, the interfering step- 
mother, the intriguing wife, the extravagant daughter, the 
lady of fashion, have been detected with unerring clarity 
of vision and pursued with accomplished skill. They have 
also been taken for granted. It was not until the modern 
inquiry into cause and effect was instituted that the fem- 
inine failure was viewed as an effect of which society was 
largely the cause, by withholding opportunity on one hand, 
and on the other encouraging the very ignorance and in- 
anity it affected to despise. This discovery led logically 
to the shifting of the satire from effect back to cause, and 
the addition of another item to the list wherein the con- 
certed action of the social group is held accountable for 
any malign influence on its members. 

This probing into causes is even more sweepingly oper- 
ative in the larger society of mankind and the body poli- 
tic. The study of economics and sociology inevitably has 
switched the old partisan antagonism into a new opposi- 
tion based more consciously on theories of government, — 
still partisan, to be sure, but less on personal and more on 
philosophical grounds. The new element this brings into 
political satire is the effort to create a public sense of shame 
for official incompetence, since in a democracy (and such, 
in some form or other, is almost every modern State) the 
blame for this incompetence rests ultimately on the pub- 
lic. Modern critics may echo Isaiah's scornful com- 
plaint of state officialdom, — "The ancient and the honor- 



298 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

able man, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth 
lies, he is the tail," — but their remedy would lie not in in- 
creased reliance on a theocracy but in a more adequate 
popular referendum. John Barton concludes his impas- 
sioned tirade against mill-owners and capitalists with the 
argument, — ^ 

"Don't think to come over me with th' old tale, that the 
rich know nothing of the trials of the poor; I say, if they don't 
know, they ought to know. We're their slaves as long as we can 
work; we pile up their fortunes with the sweat of our brows, and 
yet we are to live as separate as Dives and Lazarus, with a 
great gulf betwixt us: but I know who was best off then." 

On another occasion he adds this explanation, — ^ 

"What we all feel sharpest is the want of inclination to try 
and help the evils which come like blights at times over the man- 
ufacturing places, while we see the masters can stop work and 
not suffer." 

To this serious and personal grief Meredith responds, 
as it were, in his more impersonal and ironic manner. Di- 
ana represents the view from a position of equality, and 
the satire of one's own class: ^ 

"And charity is haunted, like everything we do. Only I say 
with my whole strength — yes, I am sure, in spite of the men pro- 
fessing that they are practical, the rich will not move without 
a goad. I have and hold — you shall hunger and covet, until 
you are strong enough to force my hand; — that's the speech of 
the wealthy. And they are Christians. In name. Well, I thank 
heaven I'm at war with myself.' " 

Kingsley is spurred by the subject to a bitter sar- 
casm: ^ 

1 Mary Barton, 6. * Diana of the Crossways, 48. 

2 Ibid., 3 17. * Yeast, 34. 



THE VICTORIAN CONTRIBUTION 299 

"The finest of us are animals, after all, and live by eating and 
sleeping, and, taken as animals, not so badly off, either — unless 
we happen to be Dorsetshire laborers — or Spitalfield weavers — 
or colliery children — or marching soldiers — or, I am afraid, one 
half of English souls this day.'* 

Nor is he lacking in a constructive outlook. In con- 
nection with a fling at the "amusingly inconsistent, how- 
ever well-meant scene in Coningsby^'^ in which Disraeli 
illustrates his idea of a beneficent aristocracy, he has one 
of his characters meditate that — ^ 

"It may suit the Mr. Lyles of this age * * * to make the 
people constantly and visibly comprehend that property is their 
protector and their friend, but I question whether it will suit the 
people themselves, unless they can make property understand 
that it owes them something more definite than protection." 

At that time there was not much disposition to believe 
these ills could be cured by legislation. On the contrary, 
the numerous satiric hits at various governmental depart- 
ments were aimed not at the general laissez Jaire policy 
of the State, but at its indifferent success in the matters 
over which it had already assumed jurisdiction, and its 
unwarranted encroachment into others. The reasoning 
seemed to be that an institution which had been unfaith- 
ful and convicted of inertness, graft, and stupidity in its 
limited operations would be unlikely to be more alert, 
honest, and intelligent if its burdens were increased. Da- 
vid Copperfield is shocked to learn from Mr. Spenlow the 
ways of the law, and still more so at Mr. Spenlow's cold- 

* Yeasti 236. He also has a sneer for the patronizing scheme of Vieuxbois, in 
which "of course the clergy and the gentry were to educate the poor, who were 
to take down thankfully as much as it was thought proper to give them: and 
all beyond was ' self-will ' and 'private judgment,' the fathers of Dissent and 
Chartism, Trades-union strikes, and French Revolutions." 117. 



300 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

ness toward the idea of reform.^ Henry Little wades 
through and climbs over all sorts of official obstacles until 
"he had done, in sixty days, what a true inventor will do 
in twenty-four hours, whenever the various metallic ages 
shall be succeeded by the age of reason." ^ A prison in- 
spector is finally confronted with actual facts of a horrify- 
ing nature: ^ 

"How unreal and idle appeared now the twenty years gone 
in tape and circumlocution! Away went his life of shadows — 
his career of watery polysyllables meandering through the 
great desert into the Dead Sea." 

But more subtle and vital than all these errors, — the 
error indeed at the root of them all, — is the failure of the 
State to utilize the fine material placed at its disposal, 
potentially if not actually, in the lives of noble and capa- 
ble youth. No one before Lytton could have laid at the 

^ He reflects, "I had not the hardihood to suggest to Dora's father that pos- 
sibly we might even improve the world a little, if we got up early in the morn- 
ing, and took off our coats to the work; but I confessed that I thought we might 
improve the Commons." David Copperfield, II, 44. The counter argument 
brought forward to dampen his enthusiasm was that more good was done to the 
sinecurists than harm to the public, — whose ignorance was its bliss. "Under 
the Prerogative Office, the country had been glorious. Insert the wedge into 
the Prerogative Office, and the country would cease to be glorious, He con- 
sidered it the principle of a gentleman to take things as he found them." 

2 Put Yourself in his Place, 401. 

^ Never too Late to Mend, 411. In the same story Reade lays great stress on 
the importance of the inspector's duty: "Only for this task is required, not the 
gullibility that characterizes the many, but the sagacity that distinguishes the 
few." 360. 

It was this sagacity, combined with keen imagination, quick sympathy, and 
prompt and efficient action, that rendered the chaplain Eden a success under 
discouraging difficulties. The very foundation of his success was laid when he 
insisted on experiencing for himself the straight jacket and the solitary con- 
finement, to the unbounded but amused mystification of the jail officials. And 
the shrewd couf d'etat by which he converted one of them revealed the profound 
truth that "ignorance is the mother of cruelty." 



THE VICTORIAN CONTRIBUTION 3OI 

door of society the wasted possibilities of a Godolphin. No 
one before Meredith could have made the thwarted career 
of a Beauchamp a pitiful satire on "his indifferent Eng- 
land," who appeared, "with a quiet derision that does 
not belie her amiable passivity, to have reduced in Beau- 
champ's career the boldest readiness for public action, and 
some good stout efforts besides, to the flat result of an 
optically discernible influence of our hero's character in 
the domestic circle: perhaps a faintly outlined circle or two 
beyond it." ^ 

In Society and the State all opposition is necessarily 
factional, for none can stand entirely outside. This was 
true of the Church also, during its undisputed supremacy, 
when to be excommunicated was equivalent to being im- 
prisoned or otherwise put outside the pale. But by the 
sixteenth century Skelton could say in Colyn Clout y 

"For, as farre as I can se, 
It is wrong with eche degre; 
For the temporalte 
Accuseth the spiritualte; 
The spirituall agayne 
Dothe grudge and complayne 
Upon the temporall men:" 

By the eighteenth, Voltaire could get a hearing, albeit 
a hostile and scandalized one. And by the nineteenth, we 
have not only Bronte and Kingsley censuring from within, 
but Meredith and Butler from without. So far as there 
is a new note in the censure, it is in harmony with the 
whole strain of the time. For the old crude gibes against 
the old crude faults of hypocrisy, sensuality, and greed, 
is substituted the criticism that a huge organization fails 

^ Beauchamp' s Career, 40. 



302 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

to Utilize the tremendous power of its equipment, pres- 
tige, and authority, in the furtherance of general progress 
and the establishment of a genuine kingdom of God here 
upon earth. For from the spiritualte as well as the tem- 
poralte the new humanitarian spirit demands recogni- 
tion and service. 

These modifications in form and substance were in- 
duced by a modification, probably unconscious, of the idea 
of satire itself, and they in turn reacted on it to strengthen 
the changing conception. The two main elements, — a 
wider socialization in the point of view, and a firmer in- 
sistence on an understanding of conditions such as could 
not be secured under the old artless habit of accepting the 
premises, — stand for that union of feeling and intelligence 
which was the ideal of the nineteenth century. "Men," 
says Meredith, "and the ideas of men, which are * * * 
actually the motives of men in a greater degree than their 
appetites; these are my theme;" ^ and again, "The Gods 
of this world's contests demand it of us, in relation to them, 
that the mind, and not the instincts, shall be at work." ^ 
The corollary of this is that though satire may be "a pas- 
sion to sting and tear," it must do so "on rational 
grounds." ' "Satire," says Trollope, "though it may ex- 
aggerate the vice it lashes, is not justified in creating it in 
order that it may be lashed. Caricature may too easily 
become a slander, and satire a libel." * Sympathy and in- 

^ Beauchamp's Career, 7. 

^ Diana of the Crosszvays, 153. 

* One of Our Conquerors, 70. Etymologically, it is only the sarcastic variety 
which pushes the attack so far. 

* Autobiography, 86. Even the ingenuous Mr. Brooke of Middlemarch had 
made the subtle discovery that " Satire, you know, should be true up to a cer- 
tain point." And a century before, satire's warmest defender, John Brown, 
had cautioned the wits against degrading her "to a scold." 



THE VICTORIAN CONTRIBUTION 303 

telligence have no objection to pungency and force- 
fulness, but they have no real need for truculence or un- 
fairness. It is, as Garnett suggests, the unsophisticated 
man who regards satire as the offspring of ill-nature. Such 
was the intellectual status of Lady Middleton, who could 
not feel an affinity for Elinor and Marianne Dashwood: ^ 

"Because they neither flattered herself nor her children, she 
could not believe them good-natured; and because they were 
fond of reading, she fancied them satirical: perhaps without ex- 
actly knowing what it was to be satirical; but that did not sig- 
nify. It was censure in common use, and easily given." 

The vague notion that a satirist is something disagree- 
able will of course never quite be eradicated, at least not 
until people learn to like being ridiculed and criticised. 
But in manner he is undeniably growing less disagreeable 
than has been his wont. Another reason for this, in addi- 
tion to the changes already noted, is the increased activity 
of that reflexive sense of humor which operates as an anti- 
toxin to the vanity inherent in all critics. A wholesome 
fear of being absurd serves to reduce one's chances of be- 
ing that rich anomaly, a ridiculous satirist. The modern 
satirist may possess a mind conscious to itself of right and 
a conviction that he has a mission to perform. But he is 
more prone to conceal or even disclaim these things than 
to advertise them. Even Fielding did not proclaim, as he 
might have done, that he first adventured. Peacock trusted 
to his readers to discover that fools being his theme, 
satire must be his song. Since his time, satire, while ques- 
tioning all things with a new penetration, has succeeded 
in taking on an air of unconcern and in realizing that nei- 
ther promises nor apologies are necessary. Post-Byronic 

^ Sense and Sensibility, 244. 



304 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

satire seldom vaunts itself, and, however superior it may- 
feel, it pretends that it is not puffed up. A historian de- 
scribes the change that takes place between the Age of 
Elizabeth, when satire "was the pastime of very young 
men, who 'railed on Lady Fortune in good set terms,'** 
and the Commonwealth, when the combatants "left Na- 
ture and Fortune with their withers un wrung, and aimed 
at the joints in the harness of their enemies." ^ To the 
Victorians, satire was neither a pastime nor a matter for 
deadly earnestness. Armored antagonists had gone out 
of fashion ; and Lady Fortune was left to the metaphy- 
sicians. 

It is, indeed, a matter of curious interest that one object 
of satire, life itself, which had drawn fire occasionally all 
the way from Aristophanes to Bryon, should have been 
neglected by the Victorians, — though the neglect may be 
accounted for by their interest in the concrete and their 
generally optimistic outlook. On the other hand, one of 
the most philosophic and least optimistic of them devotes 
several bow-shots to a sort of counter attack, against those 
who consider the universe a fit subject for satire. The 
Prelude to Middlemarch identifies the heroine as one of 
those unfortunate women of deep souls and shallow cir- 
cumstances, "who found for themselves no epic life 
wherein there was a constant unfolding of far-resonant 
action." To this the comment is added: ^ 

"Some have felt that these blundering lives are due to the In- 
convenient indefiniteness with which the Supreme Power has 

^ Raleigh: The English Novel, 112. 

2 Middlemarch, I, 174. Cf. the taunt of the practical young Radical to Esther 
Lyon, on her choice of literature: " * * * gentlemen like your Renes, who 
have no particular talent for the finite, but a general sense that the infinite is 
the right thing for them." Felix Holt, II, 34. 



THE VICTORIAN CONTRIBUTION 305 

fashioned the natures of women: if there were one level of fem- 
inine incompetence as strict as the ability to count three and 
no more, the social lot of women might be treated with scien- 
tific certitude." 

The fact, however, that "Here and there is born a Saint 
Theresa, foundress of nothing," is not an irony of fate so 
much as a folly of society. Later in the story the phil- 
osophizing of one of the characters leads the author to the 
reflection : 

"Some gentlemen have made an amazing figure in literature 
by general discontent with the universe as a trap of dulness into 
which their great souls have fallen by mistake; but the sense 
of a stupendous self and an insignificant world may have its 
consolations." 

Nay, the metaphysician himself does not altogether es- 
cape. Piero de Cosimo is accused of being one and repu- 
diates the idea: ^ 

"Not I, Messer Greco; a philosopher is the last sort of ani- 
mal I should choose to resemble. I find it enough to live, with- 
out spinning lies to account for life. Fowls cackle, asses bray, 
women chatter, and philosophers spin false reasons — that's the 
effect the sight of the world brings out of them." 

This perception of the Idol of the Cave, and the whole 
trend of Eliot's argument is evidence that the pragmatic 
attitude existed some time before it was so vividly and 
enduringly defined by Professor James. 

Since these various changes bring about no complete 
break with the satiric tradition, we may expect to find 
the connecting links with both the remote and the imme- 
diate past as much in evidence as are the features of nov- 
elty. Peacock's indebtedness was to the Athenian com- 

* Romola, I, 287. 



306 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

edy, and Lytton's to the near-contemporary Byron. Mrs. 
Gaskell had Jane Austen and Crabbe and the whole gal- 
lery of eighteenth-century village vignettes for her humors 
of rural life; while her Mary Barton probably reached back 
to Sybily as it did forward to the line of economic novels. 
Thackeray had a large store to draw on for his burlesques, 
as did Lytton and Butler for their pseudo-Utopias. 

Nor is there any abrupt termination to satiric affairs as 
the Victorians left them at the end of the century. The 
years stand as sign posts along the way, and not as bar- 
riers across it. The changes they call our attention to 
were less patent to those in and by whom they were work- 
ing than to us with our perspective. From our moderate 
distance we are able to discern not only the evolutionary 
process but some of its results. 

In a national award the satiric prize would undoubt- 
edly go to the French, whose genius for satire not only 
gave them preeminence among the peoples in that line, 
but gave their satire precedence over their other litera- 
ture. But with this exception, the total effect of satire 
in the Victorian novel ranks artistically with the highest at 
large, and surpasses some other elements of the fiction it- 
self. For the nineteenth-century novel is undeniably di- 
dactic, and therefore, while it gains in point, significance, 
and intellectual interest, it loses in romantic interest and 
esthetic purity. It is here that satire becomes its salva- 
tion, for by giving much of the criticism a humorous turn 
it counteracts the didactic effect, enhances delight, and, 
to readers of a sensitive response, makes a point that 
would not be sharpened by increased vehemence. No 
invective against the Countess de Saldar could be so il- 
luminating as Lady Jocelyn's thorough relish of her as a 
specimen. It is of a piece with Mr. Bennetts enjoyment 



THE VICTORIAN CONTRIBUTION 307 

of Collins and Wickham; ^ with Lamb's avowal that he 
would rather lose the legacy Dorrell cheated him out of 
than "be without the idea of that specious old rogue;" 
and with the dismay of Don Antonio over the restored 
sanity of Don Quixote.^ It is the secret of Trollope's 
charm, as Hawthorne indicated when he described the im- 
pression of those "beef and ale'* novels, — 

"* * * as if some giant had hewn a great lump out 
of the earth and put it under a glass case, with all its inhabit- 
ants going about their daily business, and not suspecting that 
they were being made a show of.'* 

It would have been a saving grace to many of the dra- 
matis personce if they could have shared the experience of 
a romantically inclined youth who, after building an air 
castle in which he figured first as a conquering hero and 
then as a magnanimous patron, suddenly "came to:" ^ 

"And then he turned upon himself with laughter, discovering 
a most wholesome power, barely to be suspected in him yet. " 

"What a pity it is," exclaimed Butler,^ "that Chris- 
tian never met Mr. Common-Sense with his daughter, 

^ In his initial pleasure over Wickham, he defies "even Sir William Lucas him- 
self to produce a more valuable son-in-law," but later, after reading a letter 
from Collins, he concludes, — "I cannot help giving him the preference even 
over Wickham, much as I value the impudence and hypocrisy of my son-in-law." 

^ "God forgive you," he exclaims to Carrasco, "the injury you have done the 
whole world, in endeavouring to restore to his senses the most diverting mad- 
man in it. Do you not see, sir, that the benefit of his recovery will not counter- 
balance the pleasure his extravagancies afford?" Ill, 449. 

' Evan Harrington, 457. Cf. a similar idea in Th^ Shaving of Shagpai. The 
narrator of The Newcomes speaks in the Preface of the " pert little satirical mon- 
itor" which sprang up inwardly and upset the fond humbug he was cherishing. 
It is a curious circumstance that neither Dickens nor Thackeray, with all their 
humor, could create characters with that quality. Even of Becky it might be 
said that she never did a foolish thing, nor ever said a wise one, 

*NoU Books, 189. 



308 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

Good-Humour, and her affianced husband, Mr. Hate- 
Cant." Bunyan doubtless would have replied that he also 
approved of these somewhat worldly characters, but that 
they were people of less importance in their day than they 
became thereafter. The progress of the modern pilgrim 
is toward a City of Sanitation rather than Holiness, but 
sanitation is interpreted so widely as to include the soul 
also in the cleansing process. For this work Common- 
Sense and Hate-Cant are our efficiency experts; and that 
Good-Humour should be a member of their household is 
inevitable at a time when graciousness is accounted not a 
negligible adornment but a fundamental virtue. . 

To the poise and proportion contributed to satire by the 
emphasis on the quality of humor, must be added the jus- 
tice that comes from a rationalized sympathy, and from 
the counter, positive element which restores the balance 
pulled down by destructive criticism. A striking ex- 
ample of both is furnished by Meredith in his explanation 
of one of his characters. No pretender has ever been 
more skillfully pursued or more thoroughly unmasked 
than the ambitious daughter of the great Mel. After 
such treatment no one before this time could have pre- 
sented so fairly the case for the defendant: ^ 

"Now the two Generals — Rose Jocelyn and the Countess 
de Saldar — had brought matters to this pass; and from the 
two tactical extremes: the former by openness and dash; the 
latter by subtlety and her own interpretations of the means 
extended to her by Providence. I will not be so bold as to 
state which of the two I think right. Good and evil work to- 
gether in this world. If the Countess had not woven the tangle, 
and gained Evan time, Rose would never have seen his blood, — 
never have had her spirit hurried out of all shows and forms 

^ Evan Harrington, 368. 



THE VICTORIAN CONTRIBUTION 309 

and habits of thought, up to the gates of existence, as it were, 
where she took him simply as God created him, and clave to him." 

Thackeray and Trollope also apologize for some of the 
people they ridicule, but with this characteristic difference, 
that Thackeray bespeaks your indulgence for a Pendennis 
or a Philip on the Horatian ground, 

"Nam vitiis nemo sine nascitur; optimus ille est 
Qui minimis urgetur." 

But Trollope conscientiously reminds the reader that 
his picture of an Archdeacon Grantly, a George Bertram, 
even a Mrs. Proudie, is one-sided; that their dramatic 
and amusing faults have been allowed to overshadow 
their less entertaining but existent virtues; and that to 
know all would be, not to forgive all, but to forgive ju- 
diciously. His story of the childish lapse and manly 
recovery of the vicar Robarts concludes with the re- 
flection, "A man may be very imperfect and yet worth 
a great deal." ^ This is a clear, cool discrimination far 
more difficult to attain than Thackeray's nebulous impli- 
cation that though this man is certainly very imperfect 
and not worth a great deal yet his dear womenkind 
excuse him and we adore them for it. 

George Eliot is too stern to do much excusing, but she 
always gives due weight to "the terrible coercion of our 
deeds." If she insists on the baleful effect of yielding 
to temptation, she insists also on an appreciation of the 
tempting force. She analyzes the culprit: ^ 

1 Framley Parsonage, 306. 

2 Adam. Bede, II, 37. Cf. Lord Fleetwood's complaint to Carinthia that she 
has hit him hard and justly, followed by his acknowledgment, — "Not you. 
Our deeds are the hard hitters. We learn when they begin to flagellate, stroke 
upon stroke! Suppose we hold a costly thing in the hand and dash it to the 
ground — no recovery of it, none!" An Amazing Marriage, 439. 



310 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

"The action which before commission has been seen with 
that blended common-sense and fresh untarnished feehng which 
is the healthy eye of the soul, is looked at afterwards with the 
lens of apologetic ingenuity, through which all things that men 
call beautiful and ugly are seen to be made up of textures very 
much alike." 

But at the same time she warns his judges: 

"Our deeds determine us as much as we determine our deeds; 
and until we know what has been or will be the peculiar com- 
bination of outward with inward facts, which constitutes a 
man's critical actions, it will be better not to think ourselves 
wise about his character." 

Elsewhere, on the same theme, she indicates her general 
impression of the relative amounts of human wisdom and 
folly: 1 

"And to judge wisely I suppose we must know how things 
appear to the unwise; that kind of appearance making the 
larger part of the world's history. " 

This is in agreement with the point of the lines written 
on the portrait of Beau Nash at Bath, placed between 
the busts of Newton and Pope: 

"This picture placed these busts between, 
Gives satire all its strength: 
Wisdom and Wit are little seen, 
But Folly at full length." 

But this Victorian painter of Folly, and at least some 
of her contemporaries, endeavored to make satire realis- 
tic by drawing Wit and Wisdom on a proportionate scale. 
It was in recognition of this that Stevenson said, 

* Daniel Deronda, II, 86. 



THE VICTORIAN CONTRIBUTION 3II 

"My compliments to George Eliot for her Rosamund Vincy; 
the ugly work of satire she has transmuted to the ends of art 
by the companion figure of Lydgate; and the satire was much 
wanted for the education of young men.** 

Victorian literature would not have cared to produce a 
Ship of Foolsj — though a passenger list might easily be 
culled out from its fiction, — nor a Hudibras, nor a Dunciady 
nor even a 'Tartuffe, for George Warrington voiced the gen- 
eral sentiment when he said of that great drama that it 
could not be reckoned great in comparison with Othello , 
because "'a mere villainous hypocrite should not be chief 
of a great piece.'" ^ 

This segment of literature may not be more sincere in 
its claim of truth-telling, but it shows more art in its 
method; and it is perhaps even less flattering to human 
nature in its assumption that simple exposure, without 
exaggeration, is quite enough. 

Nor did it ever expect its satire to prove revolutionary. 
Peacock, first on the list, confessed, through one of his 
characters, of having been cured of a passion for reform- 
ing the world, "by the conviction of the inefficacy of 
moral theory with respect to producing a practical change 
in the mass of mankind." He adds, — ^ 

"Custom is the pillar round which opinion twines, and inter- 
est is the tie that binds it. It is not by reason that practical 
change can be effected, but by making a puncture to the quick 
in the feelings of personal hope and personal fear.** 

The fear of being ridiculous is of course one of those 
which may be punctured to the quick, and thereby a 
practical change effected. It is also true that, the human 
constitution and capacity being what they are, constant 

^ The Virginians, II, 363. * Melincourt, II, 14. 



312 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

criticism is necessary. It is the spur, the brake, the cor- 
rective, to inform us when we are going too slow, too fast, ' 
or in the wrong direction. It is not by nature an agreeable 
thing, and there are times when it should not be made so. 
But if there are deeds and characters beyond the reach 
of humor, it is equally true, conversely, as Meredith says: ^ 
"There are questions as well as persons that only the 
Comic can fitly touch." The paradox arises in the fact 
that while criticism is essentially scientific, satire is a 
branch of esthetics, which nevertheless has practical pro- 
clivities. These it does no harm to exercise, providing it 
wreaks no violence on its character as an art. But the 
effect of satire must not be confused with its quality. 
It cannot be said that he satirizes best who reforms most, — ■ 
the harvest of reform from satiric seed being granted. 
Concerning a pitchfork or muckrake there is no question 
of art: concerning a statue there is no question of utility: 
but satire is like a silver spoon, which partakes of both 
qualities, and is estimated sometimes according to one, 
sometimes the other, and sometimes a compromise be- 
tween the two. 

" Cest une etrange entreprise^^ exclaimed Moliere, ^^ que 
celle de faire rire les hommetes gens.*' The strangeness of 
it becomes more striking when we remember that the 
laughter of the race is directed against itself and at the 
very things over which it is most sensitive, — its own inept 
follies and poor flimsy pretenses. But it is unendurable 
only in the form of the *' grinning sneer" of Blifil. Even 
ridicule may be welcome if it comes from the genial 
Allworthy, whose "smiles at folly were indeed such as we 
may suppose the angels bestow on the absurdities ot 
mankind." Not all satirists are so benign, but such 

^ Essay on Comedy, 62. 



THE VICTORIAN CONTRIBUTION 313 

benignity is not incompatible with the finest satire. Mere- 
dith himself, after writing a dozen novels permeated with 
the most pungent satire, said in the last one that "if we 
bring reason to scan our laugh at pure humanity, it is we 
who are in place of the ridiculous, for doing what reason 
disavows." ^ 

It may be that as we reason more we laugh less; and 
that brings the question whether it were wiser to check 
the reasoning or quench the laughter. Since, however, 
laughter is likely to improve in quality as it diminishes 
in quantity, we may be content to abjure the witticism 
at which "the fool lifteth up his voice with laughter," 
and substitute the reflective wit over which "the clever 
man will scarce smile quietly." Such was the mild as- 
piration of the humorous Victorians; but though mild, the 
spirit was ubiquitous. It gave tone to the pessimism of 
Thompson and temper to the optimism of Stevenson; it 
colored darkly the defiant pages of Carlyle and tinged 
lightly the protesting paragraphs of Arnold; it lent an 
edge to the sentiment of Tennyson and humanized the 
philosophy of Browning. It even dignified the comicality 
oi Punch, for Douglas Jerrold, at least, was far from being 
an irresponsible jester. His gruesome Dish of Glory, with 
its ironical advice to the French to eat the Algerians as 
fast as they conquer them, will bear comparison with 
The Modest Proposal. The dedication of volume eight 
also illustrates the new effect of self-turned irony: 

"As young Aurora, with her blaze of light, 
Into the shade throws all the pride of night, 
And pales presumptuous stars, who vainly think 
That every eye is on them as they blink: 

^ An Amazing Marriage, 202. 



314 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

So Punch, the light and glory of the time, 
His wit and wisdom brilliant as sublime, 
Scares into shades Cant's hypocritic throng, 
Abashes Folly, and exposes wrong. " 

This may sound like an echo from the Elizabethans and 
the Augustans; but the difference wherewith the Vic- 
torians wear their rue is as important as it is subtle. The 
two great influences of their time. Science and Democracy, 
operating upon their life and literature, made them at 
once sensitive to the reasons for man's shortcomings, and 
sensible of the absurd position of the avowed castigator — 
who, moreover, by his very situation as a sharp-shooter 
renders himself in turn the more conspicuous target. 

Man's record here below gives little cause, it is true, for 
congratulation; so discounted are his astonishing suc- 
cesses by his disheartening, hopeless failures. Colossal 
in blunder as in achievement, stupendous in fanaticism 
as in imagination, nevertheless he may maintain, on the 
authority of a deterministic philosophy, that he has liter- 
ally done the best he could. His very faculty of deception 
is often but an adoption of that protective coloring rec- 
ognized as one of Nature's most admirable devices. The 
human race is indeed provocative, but who that under- 
stands can have the heart to yield to the provocation? 
Even the most accomplished satirist of his time con- 
cluded that he would stick to sober philosophy, — ^ 

"And irony and satire off me throw. 
They crack a childish whip, drive puny herds, 
Where numbers crave their sustenance in words. " 

But though a knowledge of mortal psychology does 
have a tendency to take the starch out of satire, it does 

^ Meredith, in Patience and Foresight. 



THE VICTORIAN CONTRIBUTION 315 

not thereby destroy the fabric but only leaves it the more 
diaphanous. It no longer rustles and crackles but flows 
instead with the sweeter liquefaction of Julia's silk. This 
gentle diffusion of her presence is a less obtrusive role 
than satire has hitherto enjoyed but is none the less essen- 
tial, and in any case it is all that can be allowed by a 
scientific, democratic society, too well informed to deal 
only with surfaces, too preoccupied with its own business 
and desires, such as they are, to worry much about the 
fiasco others make of theirs, too polite to scold even 
with wit, and too truly humorous to tolerate the superior 
pose. 

In proportion however, as the individual is spared, the 
burden of responsibility is shifted to the collected shoulders 
of the society he has bound himself into. Logically, of 
course, the collection is no more guilty than its constit- 
uents, but it has the advantage of being quite as vulner- 
able and capable of improvement, and yet not endowed 
with personal feelings to be wounded or personal ability to 
retaliate. 

So far as there is a definite Victorian contribution to 
the gamer of satire, it lies in this democratization of 
objects and rationalization of methods. How great an 
impulse the Victorians gave to the era of agnosticism 
and revaluation of all ideals whose inception so troubled 
the waters of their reluctant souls, we never can know. 
What Shaw, Ibsen, Maeterlinck, Rostand, even Wells 
and Nietzsche, would have been without Peacock, Dis- 
raeli, Carlyle, Dickens, George Eliot, Huxley, Meredith, 
and Butler, is a question that admits of a wide solution. 
But it is assuredly as foolish to disdain the offerings of a 
past generation, however erring, ignorant, and prejudiced 
we may consider it in the light of our own emancipation 



3l6 SATIRE IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL 

and advancement, as to suppose that we shall count for 
more than our due modicum in the centuries to come. 

However that may be, we have as yet invented nothing 
to surpass the general Victorian satiric philosophy,— that 
the wisest reaction to life is a high seriousness graced with 
humor, and the most acceptable attitude toward one's 
fellow creatures is a compassionate comprehension of our 
common tragedy, redeemed from emotionalism by an 
ironic appreciation of the human comedy. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

Since the bibliography of this subject is necessarily too ex- 
tensive to be cited in full, the following list includes only those 
volumes of especial importance, particularly in the field of 
satire. For convenience the list is classified according to the 
main divisions of the material. 

I 

ON SATIRE 

Alden, R. M. : The Rise of Formal Satire in England under Clas- 
sical Influence. Univ. of Penn. Pub., Phil. Series, VII, 2, 
1902. 

Bergson, Henri : Laughter. (Translated by Brereton and Roth- 
well.) Macmillan, 1912. 

Brown, John: An Essay on Satire. In Dodsley's Collection of 
Poems. 

Buckingham, Duke of: An Essay on Satire. In the Scott- 
Saintsbury edition of Dryden, XV. 

Dryden, John: Essay on Satire. Above, XIII. 

Flogel, Karl. Geschichte des Grotesk Komischen in Litterature, 
(reprinted.) 1886. 

Gamett, Richard: Article on Satire in the Encyclopedia 
Britannica. 

Hannay, James: Satire and Satirists. Redfield, 1856. 

Henderson, E. F.: Symbol and Satire in the French Revolu" 
tion. Putnam, 191 2. 

Lenient, C. : La Satire en France au Moyen Age. Hachette, 1859. 

Lenient, C: La Satire en France au XV et XVI Siecles. Hach- 
ette, 1866. 

Meredith, George: Essay on Comedy. Scribner. 

317 



3l8 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

Morris, Corb>Ti: ^n Essay iourards fixing ih<r Tnu Standards 
cf ff'it, Humour, RailUry, Satirf^ and Ridicule. London, 

1743- 
Xeff, T. L. La Saiirf d^s Femrms dans la PoesU Lyriqu£ Fran- 

cais du Moycn Age. Paris, 1900. 
Pre%-ite-Orton, C. W. : Political Satire in English Poetry. Cam- 
bridge University Press, 1910. 
Schneegans, H.: Geschichi^ drr Grotesken Satire. Strassburg, 

19S4. 
Tucker, S. M.: Verse-Satire in England before the Renaissance. 

Columbia University Press, 1908. 
Comments on satire of a more incidental and yet interesting 
nature are found in prefaces and translations, in essays on kin- 
dred topics, and in general histories of literature. (In some cases 
it is hard to decide to which group a given citation should be 
assigned. A few are practically interchangeable.) 
Ball, A. P.: Th^ Satire of Seneca, Columbia University Press, 

1902. 
Besant, Sir Walter: Tfu French Humourists from the Twelfth to 

the Ninrt^enih Centuries. Bentiey, 1873. 
Boileau, Nicolas: A short prose treatise published with the 

Satirfs. 
Bourne, Randolph: The Life of Irony. Adantic Monthly, 

HI. 357. 

Carman, Gilbert: Satire. (Short monograph.) Doran. 

Chesterton, G. K. : Pope and the Art of Satire. In Varied Types. 
Dodd, Mead, 1908. 

Fuess, C. M.: Lord Byron as a Satirist in Verse. Columbia 
University- Press, 1912. 

Headlam, Cecil: SeUcticms from the British Satirists. Robin- 
son, iSgj. 

Jackson, Thomas : Th^ Use of Irony. Introductory Essay to 
A Narratioe of tk^ Fire of London^ by Peter Maritzburg. 
London, 1S69. 

L'Estrange, A. G. : History cf English Humour. London, 
1877. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 3I9 

Matthews, Brander: On American Satire in Verse. Harper's 

Magazine, CIV, 294. 
My res, Ernest: English Satire in the Nineteenth Century. Liv- 
ing Age, 1882. 
Paley, F. A- : Fragments of the Greek Comic Poets. Macmillan, 

1892. 
Smeaton, W. H.: English Satires. London, 1899. 
Stokes, F. G. ^editor) : Epistola Obscurorum Fivorum. Chatto 

and \\ Indus, 1909. 
Symonds, J. A.: The Renaissance in Italy. (VoL V, Chap. 

XIV.) Holt, 1888. 
Taine, H. A- : History of English Literature. Chapter on Thack- 
eray. 
Ullman, B. L.: Horace on the Nature of Satire. Transactions 

of the American Philological Assodarion, 1917. 
Van Laun, H. : History of French Literature. Introduction, and 

Book IV, Chap. I. Putman, 1876. 
Wright, Thomas: Anglo-Saxon Satirical Poets and Epigramr- 

matists of the Tzcelfth Century. London, 1872. 
Wright, Thomas: A History of Caricature and Grotesque in Lit- 
erature and Art, 1865. 

The satirists themselves who have been sufficiently self-con- 
scious of their art to discuss it more or less include, on the Con- 
tinent, Horace, Juvenal, Lucian, Cervantes, and Boileau; and 
in England, Barclay, Skelton, Gascoigne, Marston, Jonson, 
Defoe, Swift, Pope, Young, Johnson, Fielding, Churchill, Cow- 
per, \\olcott, Gilford, Byron, Peacock, Thackeray, Dickens, 
Trollope, and Meredith. 

n 

ON THE NOVEL 

Brownell, W. C. : Victorian Prose Masters. Doubled ay, Page, 
1902. 

Brownell, W. C. : The Novelists. (Warner Qassics.) Double- 
day, Page, 1905. 



320 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

Burton, Richard: Masters of the English Novel. Holt, 1909. 
Cross, W. L.: Development of the English Novel. Macmillan, 

1905. 
Dawson, W. J. : Makers of English Fiction. Revell, 1905. 
Holllday, Carl: English Fiction. Century, 191 2. 
Lord, W. F. : The Mirror of the Century. Lane, 1906. 
Oliphant, James: Victorian Novelists. Blackie, 1899. 
Phelps, W. L. : Advance of the English Novel. Dodd, Mead, 

1916. 
Raleigh, Walter: The English Novel. Murray, 1911. 
Saintsbury, George: The English Novel. Dutton, 1913. 
Stoddard, F. L.: Evolution of the English Novel. Macmillan, 
1909. 

On the Nineteenth Century in general some of the most im- 
portant volumes are: 
Brandes, Georg: Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Liter" 

ature. London, 1905. 
Bryce, James: Studies in Contemporary Biography. Mac- 
millan, 1903. 
Chesterton, G. K. : The Victorian Age in Literature. Holt, 1914. 
Gosse, Edmund: English Literature in the Nineteenth Century. 

Putnam, 1901. 
Harrison, Frederic: Studies in Early Victorian Literature. Long- 
mans, 1906. 
Magnus, Laurie: English Literature in the Nineteenth Century. 

Putnam, 1909. 
Saintsbury, George: History of Nineteenth Century Literature. 

Macmillan, 1899. 
Saintsbury, George: The Later Nineteenth Century. In Periods 

of European Literature. Blackwood, 1907. 
Walker, Hugh: Literature of the Victorian Era. Cambridge 

University Press, 1901. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 321 

III 

ON THE NOVELISTS 

Bronte. 

Birrell, Augustine: Life of Charlotte Bronte. Walter Scott, 

1887. 
Gaskell, Mrs.: Life of Charlotte Bronte. Harper, 1902. 
Goldring, Maude: Charlotte Bronte, the Woman; a Study. 

Scribner, 191 6. 
Shorter, C. K.: The Brontes: Life and Letters. Scribner, 

1900. 

Butler. 

Cannan, Gilbert: Samuel Butler, a Critical Study. Lon- 
don, 1915. 

Harris, J. E.: Samuel Butler, Author of Erewhon. Lon- 
don, 1 91 6. 

Dickens. 

Chesterton, G. K.: Charles Dickens, a Critical Study. 

Dodd, Mead, 1906. 
Chesterton, G. K. : Appreciation and Criticism of the Works 

of Charles Dickens. Dent, 1911. 
Cooper, F. T.: (Translator from the French of Keine and 

Lumet, in the Great Men Series.) Stokes, 1914. 
Crotch, W. W. : The Pageant of Dickens. Chapman and 
Hall, 1916. 
The Soul of Dickens. Chapman and Hall, 

1916. 
Charles Dickens, Social Reformer. Chap- 
man and Hall, 1916. 
Fitzgerald, P. H. : The Life of Charles Dickens as Revealed 

in his Works. Chatto and Windus, 1905. 
Forster, John: Life of Charles Dickens. (Now included 
with the Gadshill edition). Chapman and Hall, 1904. 



322 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

Gissing, George: Charles Dickens, a Critical Study. Dodd, 
Mead, 1898. 

Hughes, J. L.: Dickens as an Educator. Appleton, 1901. 

Marzials, Sir Frank: Life of Charles Dickens. Walter 
Scott, 1887. 

Swinburne, C. A.: Charles Dickens. London, 1913. 

Ward, A. W.: Charles Dickens. (Men of Letters.) Har- 
per, 1 901. 

Disraeli. 

Amot, Robert: The Earl of Beaconsfield. Dunn, 1904. 
Brandes, Georg: Lord Beaconsfield, a Study. Scribner, 

1880. 
Froude, J. A.: Lord Beaconsfield. (Prime Ministers of 

Queen Victoria.) London, 1890. 
Mill, John: Disraeli, the Author, Orator, and Statesman. 

London, 1863. 
Moneypenny and Buckle: Life of Benjamin Disraeli. Mac- 

millan, 1916. 
O'Connor, T. P.: Lord Beaconsfield, a Biography. Fisher 

Unwin, 1905. 

Eliot. 

Blind, Mathilde: George Eliot. (Eminent Women.) Al- 
len, 1884. 

Browning, Oscar: Life of George Eliot. (Great Writers). 
Walter Scott, 1892. 

Cooke, G. W. : George Eliot, a Critical Study. Houghton, 
Mifflin, 1883. 

Cross, J. W.: Life and Letters of George Eliot. Blackwood, 
1885. 

Stephen, Leslie: George Eliot. (Men of Letters.) Mac- 
millan, 1902. 

Thomson, Clara: George Eliot. (Westminster Biogra- 
phies.) Paul, Trench, 1901. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 323 

Gaskell. 

Shorter, Clement: Life of Mrs. Gaskell. (Men of Letters.) 
Macmillan, 1904. 

Kingsley. 

Kaufman, M.: Charles Kingsley, Christian Socialist and 

Social Reformer. London, 1892. 
Stubbs, C. W.: Charles Kingsley and the Christian Social 
Movement. (Victorian Era.) London, 1899. 

Lytton. 

Cooper, Thomas : Lord Lytton. (Men of the Time.) Rout- 
ledge, 1873. 

Lytton, Earl of: Life of Edward Bulwer, first Lord Lytton. 
Macmillan, 191 3. 

Meredith. 

Bailey, E. J.: The Novels of George Meredith. Scribner, 1907. 

Beach, J. W. : The Comic Spirit in Meredith. Longmans, 
Green, 191 1. 

Crees, J. H. E.: George Meredith, a Study. Oxford Uni- 
versity Press, 1918. 

Curie, R. H. P.: Aspects of George Meredith. Dutton, 1908. 

Hammerton, J. A.: George Meredith in Anecdote and Grit- 
cism. London, 1909, 

Le Gallienne, Richard: George Meredith, Some Character- 
istics. Lane, 191 5. 

Lynch, Hannah: George Meredith. London, 1891. 

MofFat, James: A Primer to the Novels of George Meredith. 
London, 1909. 

Trevelyan, G. M.: The Poetry and Philosophy of George 
Meredith. London, 191 3. 

Peacock. 

Freeman, A. M.: Thomas Love Peacock, a Critical Study. 
Kennerley, 191 1. 



324 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

Paul, H.: The Novels of Thomas Love Peacock. London, 

1904. 
Van Doren, Carl: Life of Thomas Love Peacock. Dutton, 

1911. 
Young, A. B.: Life and Novels of Thomas Love Peacock. 

Norwich, 1904. 

Reade. 

Coleman, John: Charles Reade. London, 1903. 

Thackeray. 

Benjamin, L. S.: (Lewis Melville.) William Makepeace 
Thackeray, a Biography. Lane, 1910. 

Benjamin, L. S.: Some Aspects of Thackeray. Little, 
Brown, 191 1. 

Chesterton and Melville: Thackeray. London, 1903. 

Jack, A. A.: Thackeray, a Study. London, 1895. 

Merivale and Marzials: Life of William Makepeace Thac- 
keray. Scott, 1 89 1. 

TroUope, Anthony: William Makepeace Thackeray. (Men 
of Letters.) Macmillan, 1905. 

Whibley, Charles: William Makepeace Thackeray. (Mod- 
em English Writers.) London, 1904. 

Trollope. 

Escott, Thomas: Anthony Trollope. Lane, 191 3. 

Nearly half these novelists left collections of letters. Lyt- 
ton's and George Eliot's were published with their biographies. 
The others are: 

Dickens. Edited by Mamie Dickens and Georgina Ho- 
garth. Latest edition, Macmillan, 1893. 
Meredith. Edited by his son. Scribner, 191 2. 
Thackeray. 

A Collection of Letters of Thackeray. (To the Brook- 
fields.) Scribner, 1887. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 325 

Letters of Thackeray to an American Family. Smith, 

Elder, 1904. 
Some Family Letters of William Makepeace Thackeray. 

Houghton, Mifflin, 1911. 

The only autobiography is TroUope's. Edited by H. M. 
Trollope. Harper, 1883. 

Two especially noteworthy pieces of editorial Introduction 
should be mentioned : Garnett's for Peacock, and Mrs. Ritchie's 
for Thackeray. Among the many essays and shorter studies 
are the following: 

Bronte, in Gates's Studies and Appreciations; and Swin- 
burne's A Note on Charlotte Bronte. 

Eliot, in Darmstetter's English Studies, Dowden's Studies 
in Literature, Morley's Critical Miscellanies, Myers' 
Modern Essays^ and Sherer's Essays on English Lit- 
erature. 

Meredith, in Elton's Modern Studies, Henderson's Inter- 
preters of Life and the Modern Spirit, and Sherman's 
On Contemporary Literature. Forman is editor of a 
volume Some Early Appreciations of Meredith. 

Reade, in Swinburne's Miscellanies. 

Trollope, in Bradford's A Naturalist of Souls, and Julian 
Hawthorne's Confessions in Criticism. 

And finally there are certain combinations and groups, such as: 

Bronte and Eliot, in Bonnell's Charlotte Bronte, George 
Eliot, and Jane Austen. 

Bronte, Dickens, Eliot, Thackeray, and Trollope, in Saints- 
bury's Corrected Impressions; and Peacock, in his 
Essays in English Literature. 

Bronte, Disraeli, Kingsley, and Eliot, in Stephen's Hours 
in a Library; and Trollope, in his Studies of a Biog- 
rapher, 



3 26 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

Dickens and Thackeray, In Bagehot's Literary Studies, 
and Field's Yesterdays with Authors. 

Dickens, Thackeray, and Eliot, in Clark's Study of Eng- 
lish Prose Writers. 

Dickens, Thackeray, and Kingsley, in Lang's Essays in 
Little. 

Dickens and Lytton, in Home's New Spirit of the Age. 

Dickens, in Hutton's Criticism on Contemporary Thought 
and Thinkers, and Eliot, in his Essays on Some Mod- 
ern Guides to English Thought. 

Dickens, Disraeli, Gaskell, and Meredith, in More's Shel- 
burne Essays. 

Disraeli and Peacock, in Gamett's Essays of an ex-Libra- 
rian. 

Eliot, in Berle's George Eliot and Thomas Hardy. 

Eliot and Trollope, in James's Partial Portraits. 

The following editions of the novelists are those referred to 
in the text. 

Bronte. 

Jane Eyre. Haworth edition. Harper. 
Shirley and Villette. Dent edition. 

Butler. 

Erewhon and Erewhon Revisited. Dutton. 

The Way of All Flesh. Modern Library edition. Boni and 
Liveright. 

Dickens. 

Pickwick, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Martin Chuzzle- 
wit. Hard Times, Little Dorrit, Tale of Two Cities, Our 
Mutual Friend. Hearst International edition. 

Great Expectations, and Edwin Drood. The Jefferson Press. 

Dombey and Son. Crowell. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 327 

Barnahy Rudge. Chapman and Hall. 
Disraeli. Longmans, Green. 

Eliot. 

Middlemarch and Mill on the Floss. Blackwood. 
All the others, Scribners' Standard edition. 

Gaskell. Smith, Elder. 

Kingsley. Macmillan. 

Lytton. Knebworth edition. Routledge and Sons. 

Meredith. 

Sandra Belloni, Celt and Saxon, and One of Our Conquer- 
ors: Scribner. 
All the others, Constable. 

Peacock. Aldine edition. Dent. 

Reade. Dana Estes. 

Trollope. 

Cathedral Series and The Claverings: Smith, Elder. 

Manor House Series. Dodd, Mead. 

The Bertrams. Harper. 

The Way We Live Now. Chapman and Hall. 

Thackeray. Dana Estes. 



INDEX 



Absalom and Achitophel, 12 n. 

Adam Bede, 152, 252, 277, 309 f. 

Addison, Joseph, 48, 89. 

Adventures oj an Atom, 193. 

Adventures 0/ Philip, The, 186. 

Alden, R. M., 40. 

Alice, 158. 

Alton Locke, 131, 19111., 198, 212 f., 
221. 

Amazing Marriage, An, 98, 157, 203, 
274, 283, 30911., 313. 

Anti- Jacobin, The, 169. 

Apology for Smectymnuus, An, 12. 

Ariosto, L., 124. 

Aristophanes; his comedy, 4, 8; com- 
ments by Cope and White, 19, 48, 
78, 204, 304. 

Aristophanes' Apology, 10, 15, 34, 37. 

Aristotle, 7, 49. 

Arnold, Matthew, 49, 134, 177, 223, 

313,315- 
Austen, Jane, 49, 84, 112, 123 n., 129, 

134 n., 156, 238, 24s, 306. 
Author, The, 17. 
Autobiography, (Trollope's), 52 n. 

Bacon, Francis, 273. 

Barchester Towers, 88, 108 f., 209. 

Barclay, Alexander, 21 n., 243. 

Barnaby Rudge, 96. 

Barry Lyndon, 78, 79, 148. 

Beauchamp's Career, 88, 98 f., 115, 

155, 160, 174, 192, 197, 213 f., 224, 

301, 302. 
Bergson, Henri, 7, 28. 
Bertrams, The, 142, 202 f., 208 f., 221. 
Bigelow Papers, The, 4, 168. 



Birrell, Augustine, 35. 

Blackmore, Sir Richard, 46. 

Blake, William, 49. 

Bleak House, 97, 140, 141, 202. 

Boileau, N., 48. 

Book of Snobs, The, 206 f., 219 f., 286. 

Bourne, Randolph, 128. 

Bright, John, 170, 204. 

Bronte, Charlotte, 46, 49, 50, 85, 92, 
116, 130, 131, 156, 170, 180, 183 f., 
191, 210, 218, 231, 260, 270, 271, 
279. 285, 301. 

Brown, John, 12 f., 36, 123 n. 

Browne, Sir Thomas, 176. 

Browning, Robert, 10, 15, 34, 37, 49, 
76, 98, 172 n., 313. 

Bryce, James, 84 n. 

Buckingham, 2nd Duke of, 9. 

Burns, Robert, 48. 

Burton, Robert, 49. 

Butler, Samuel, 46, 48, 61, 62, 63 f., 
81, 82, 87, 128, 130, 145, 180, 187, 
190, 191, 198, 202, 210, 214, 218, 
219, 221, 222, 231, 246 n., 269, 270, 
273, 278, 280, 287, 290 n., 294, 295, 
301, 306, 307, 315. 

Byron, Lord, 11 n., 17, 28, 35, 48, 
76, 169, 171, 173, 177, 223, 289, 
304, 306. 

Cannan, Gilbert, 69 n. 
Candidate, The, 16. 

Carlyle, Thomas, 38 n., 49, 177, 195, 
204, 222 n., 228, 236 n., 294, 313, 

315- 
Catherine, 62 n., 79, 148. 
Caxtons, The, 25 



329 



330 



INDEX 



Cervantes, 4, 9 n., 25, 48, 51, 670., 

70, 17s f., 307. 
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 286. 
Chesterton, G. K., 65 n., 71 n., 195, 

246 n. 
Churchill, Charles, 6, 16 f., 48. 
Claudius, 169. 

Cloister and the Hearth, The, 88. 
Coffee House Politician, The, 23. 
Coleridge, S. T., 171 f., 173, 177. 
Collins, Wilkie, 46. 
Colloquies of Society, 173 n. 
Colyn Clout, 21 n., 301. 
Coming Race, The, 63 n., 68, 72, 81, 

133, 193, 227. 
Coningsby, 170, 174, 299. 
Covent Garden Journal, The, 9 n. 
Cowper, William, 17 n., 18, 33, 49, 

176. 
Cranford, 88. 
Croce, Benedetto, 4. 
Crochet Castle, 62, 132, 145, 171, 220. 
Crotch, W. W., 246 n. 

Daniel Deronda, 236 f., 251, 253 n., 
281, 292, 310. 

Dante, 49. 

David Copperfield, 78, 199, 218, 219, 
250, 300. 

Dawson, W. J., 15. 

Defoe, Daniel, 12, 17, 22, 49, 70, 74 n., 
89, 128, 183. 

De Quincey, Thomas, 14, 33, 49, 128. 

Dewey, John, 5. 

Dickens, Charles, 46, 48, 53, 92, 95 f., 
130, 157, 170, 174, 183, 187, 190, 
191, 195, 198, 199, 202, 203, 205, 
218, 222 n., 231, 234, 235, 237, 238, 
240, 244, 247, 249, 250, 260, 262, 
269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 278, 285, 
287, 290, 315. 

Diana oj the Crossways, 161, 185, 214, 
239, 276, 284, 298, 302. 



Dinner oj Trimalchio, The, 127. 

Disraeli, Benjamin, 45, 47, 49, 51, 52, 
61, 62, 72 f., TJ, 81, 82, 89, 123, 
130, 134, 156, 170, 173, 174, 187, 
188, 191, 193 f., 198, 202, 210, 
216, 22s, 231, 244, 271, 279, 199, 

315- 
Doctor Thome, 143, 192. 
Domhey and Son, 138, 141, 2l8, 219, 

250 f. 
Domitian, 67, 169. 
Don Juan, 4, 76, 82. 
Don Quixote, 82, 127. 
Donne, John, 48. 
Dowden, Edward, 191. 
Dryden, John, 12, 21 f., 48, 123 n., 

286. 
Duke's Children, The, 217 n., 240. 
Dunbar, William, 48. 
Dunciad, The, 82, 169. 

Edwin Drood, 232, 270. 

Edgeworth, Maria, 84. 

Egoist, The, 78, 88, 98, loo, loi, 153, 
184 f., 277, 283, 293. 

Eliot, George, 46, 47, 49, 92, 116, 130, 
152, 157, 170, 177, 180, 183, 191, 
205, 216, 23s, 236, 247, 251, 253, 
256, 257, 261, 273, 274, 277, 278, 
280, 281, 285, 287, 291, 295, 309, 

315- 

Emma, 78. 

England and the English, 225. 

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, 

17- 

English Humorists, The, 50. 

English Novel, The (Raleigh's), 26, 

304- 
Epistle to William Hogarth, 16. 
Epistles to the Literati, 174. 
Erasmus, 49. 
Erewhon, 63 n., 68, 81, 82, 146 f., 190, 

202, 214 f., 227. 



INDEX 



331 



Erewhon Revisited^ 63 n., 69, 8r, 216, 

290 n. 
Essay on Comedy, An, 14, 27 f., 31 n., 

36 n., 160, 293, 312. 
Essay on Satire, (Brown's), 12 f., 36, 

123 n. (Dryden's), 21 n., 22, 123 n. 
Ettrick Shepherd, The, i, 174 n. 
Euripides, 48. 
Evan Harrington, 161, 162, 190, 255, 

284, 307, 308 f. 
Every Man in his Humour, 8. 

Fair Haven, The, 69. 

Farina, 63 n., 79, 81. 

Fatal Boots, The, 103. 

Felix Holt, 158 n., 170, 192, 198, 236, 

251, 291, 30411. 
Ferrier, Susan, iii, 238. 
Fielding, Henry, 9, 14, 22 f., 28, 37 n., 

48, 51 n., 89, 91, 286, 303. 
Framley Parsonage, 1 19 f., 142, 143 f., 

196, 207, 309. 
France, Anatole, 49, 124, 246 n. 
Freeman, A. M., 66 n. 
Fuess, C. M., 28. 

Galsworthy, John, 125. 

Garnett, Richard, 10, 36, 67 n., 303. 

Gascoigne, George, 25, 48. 

Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn, 45, 49, 
84, 92, 130, 157, 183, 191, 19s, 205, 
216, 247, 270, 279, 285, 287, 306. 

Gay, John, 6. 

Getting Married, 180. 

Gibbon, Edward, 49. 

GifFord, William, 14, 17, 48, 171. 

Godolphin, 234, 276. 

Golden Ass, The, 127. 

Goldsmith, Oliver, 48. 

Great Expectations, 160. 

Great Hoggarty Diamond, The, 62 n., 

79- 

Gryll Grange, 63 n., 65, 67. 
Gulliver's Travels, 68, 82, 89. 



Hall, Joseph, 35, 48, 124, 289, 

Hannay, James, 2. 

Hard Times, 138, 198, 218. 

Hardy, Thomas, 46, 49, 156, 223. 

Harris, J. E., 71 f. 

Harry Richmond, 98. 

Hazlitt, William, 30 n. 

Headlam, Cecil, 286. 

Headlong Hall, 62 n., 171. 

Hebrew Adversary, The, 2. 

Hebrew Prophets, The, 48. 

Heinsius, Daniel, 40 n. 

Herford, C. H., 21. 

Henry Esmond, 88. 

Historical Register, The, 9. 

Homer, 49. 

Hood, Thomas, 48. 

Hook, Theodore, 170. 

Horace, 6, 7, 11, 21, 25, 32 f., 48, 60, 

286, 289. 
Humor, 5, 7, 59, 83, 86, 280. 
Hutten, Ulrich von, 127. 
Huxley, Thomas, 177, 315. 
Hypatia, 88. 

Ibsen, Henrik, 71. 

Imaginary Conversations, 27, 34. 

Infernal Marriage, The, 62 n., 76 f., 

198. 
Intriguing Chambermaid, The, 22. 
Irony, 50, I2i f., 129, 163 f. 
Isaiah, 297. 
Ixion, 62 n., 76, 81, 173, 203 f., 223. 

James, WilUam, 305. 
Jane Eyre, 88, 218. 
Jerrold, Douglas, 313. 
Job, 2, 48. 

Johnson, Lionel, 22, 35, 176. 
Johnson, Samuel, 35, 49, 286. 
Jonson, Ben, 8, 48, 59, 229. 
Jordan, David Starr, 243. 
Joseph Andrews, 78. 



332 



INDEX 



Journey from this World to the Next, A, 

68. 
Journey to Parnassus, A, 175 n., 176. 
Juvenal, 6, 11, 21, 37, 48, 169, 286, 

289. 

Kenelm Chillingly, 113 f., 133, 188, 
221 n., 274. 

Kingsley, Charles, 46, 49, 50 n., 92, 
130, 131, 156, 174, 180, 185 f., 187, 
I9i> I9S> 210, 212, 215 n., 219, 
221, 23 1, 236 n., 248 n., 249, 252 n., 
260, 270, 271, 273, 279, 287, 298 f., 
301. 

Kingsley, Henry, 46. 

Knight, Charles, 53. 

Lamb, Charles, 6, 129, 175. 

Landor, W. S., 27, 34. 

Langland, W., 49. 

Last Chronicles of Barset, The, 109, 
118, 237, 261. 

Last Days of Pompeii, The, 88. 

Latter Day Pamphlets, 201 n. 

Legend of the Rhine, The, 62 n., 79, 81. 

Lenient, C, 163, 181. 

Letters to Obscure Men, 127. 

Little Dorrit, 97, 199. 

Lodge, Thomas, 48. 

Looking Backward, 73, 227. 

Lord Ormont and his Aminta, 185. 

Love's Labour's Lost, 78. 

Lowell, J. R., 168, 193. 

Lucian, 4, 9 n., 27, 125, 126. 

Lucretius, 49. 

Lydgate, John, 148, 243. 

Lytton, E. Bulwer, 45, 49, 61, 62, 68, 
72 f., 81, 82, 85, 89, 130, 157, 173, 
174 f., 177, 183, 187, 191, 192 f., 
198, 205, 219, 222 n., 225, 227, 23 1, 
234, 237, 244, 249, 259, 270, 271, 
272, 27s, 278, 279, 285, 286, 300, 
306. 



Macaulay, T. B., 173 n. 

MacDonald, George, 46. 

MacFlecknoe, 169. 

Madame Bovary, 61. 

Maeterlinck, M., 16, 315. 

Maid Marian, 62 n., 65, 79, 81, 145. 

Makers of English Fiction, 15. 

Mallock, W. H., 177. 

Maltravers, 234 f., 237. 

Mansfield Park, 209. 

Man and Superman, 4. 

Marston, John, 12, 17. 

Martin Chuzzlezvit, 84, loi, 134, 137. 

Mary Barton, 88, 198, 298, 306. 

Masefield, John, 128. 

Massey, Gerald, 170. 

Melincourt, 62 n., 81, 171, 172, 173, 
182 f., 192, 205, 226, 247 f., 311. 

Meredith, George, 2, 14, 27, 28, 3 1 n., 
46, 47, 48, son., 54, 61, 62, 71 n., 
77, 79, 81, 82, 92, 97 f., 117, 130, 
152, IS7, 170. 180, 183, 184, 187, 
190, 192, 19s, 213 f., 216, 217 n., 
222, 223, 224, 231, 240, 242, 244, 
245, 247, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 
258 f., 262, 269, 270, 273, 274, 275, 
276, 278, 280-287, 293, 295, 298, 
301, 302, 308, 312, 313, 315. 

Middlemarch, 151, 158, 192, 238, 253, 
274, 281, 291, 292, 304. 

Mill on the Floss, The, 150, 238, 274. 

Milnes, R. M., 170. 

Milton, John, 12, 49. 

Misfortunes of Elphin, The, 62 n., 65, 
81, 192, 206. 

Modern Utopia, A, 68. 

Modest Proposal, A, 147, 313. 

Moliere, Jean-Baptiste, 28, 73 n., 312. 

Moore, Thomas, 48. 

More, Sir Thomas, 49. 

Morris, Corbyn, 129. 

Morris, William, 227. 

My Novel, 91, 235, 244 n. 



INDEX 



333 



Napoleon, 169. 

Nero, 169. 

Never too Late to Mend, 199, 300. 

New Atlantis, The, 68. 

New Machiavelli, The, 287. 

New Republic, The, 177. 

Newcomes, The, 192, 277, 307 n. 

News from Nowhere, 227. 

Nicholas Nickleby, 96, 139, 140, 218, 

233- 
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 125, 315. 
Night and Morning, 193, 199, 234. 
Nightmare Abbey, 62 n., 64^, 171, 172, 

223, 272. 
Noctes Ambrosianae, 173. 
North, Christopher, i, 174 n., 187 n. 
North and South, 198, 205, 248. 
Northanger Abbey, 62 n., 78. 
Novels by Eminent Hands, 62 n., 79, 

174. 

Old Curiosity Shop, The, 202. 

Old Wives' Tale, An, 61. 

Oliphant, Mrs., 65 n. 

Oliver Twist, 95, 95, 137, 139, 270. 

One of our Conquerors, 154, 160, 179, 

197, 223 f., 284, 302. 
Orley Farm, 160, 202. 
Our Mutual Friend, 106 f., 202. 

Patience and Foresight, 3 14. 

Paul Clifford, 51 n., 96 n., 198. 

Peacock, Thomas Love, 45, 48, 51 n., 
52, 61, 62, 63 f., 77, 79, 81, 82, 87, 
130, 144, 170, 180, 182, 183, 191, 
192, 194, 198, 203, 205, 219, 225, 
231, 234, 247, 259, 269, 270, 272, 
278, 281, 287, 294, 303, 305 f., 311, 

315- 

Peg Woffington, 88. 

Pelham, 107, 132, 173, 177, 187, 188, 

192, 194, 221, 223, 2760. 
Pendennis, 94, 150. 



Persius, 8, 169. 

Peter Pindar, 177 f. 

Phineas Finn, 141, 184. 

Phineas Redux, 170. 

Pickwick, 78, 88, 199, 202, 232. 

Piers Plowman, 82. 

Plato, 49. 

Political Satire in English Poetry, 

29. 
Pope, Alexander, 12, 33, 35, 48. 
Praise of Folly, 127. 
Previte-Orton, C. W., 29. 
Pride and Prejudice, 1340. 
Punch, 313. 
Put Yourself in his Place, 198, 300. 

Rabelais, Francois, 67 n. 

Raleigh, Walter, 26, 123 n., 304. 

Ralph the Heir, 260 f. 

Rape of the Lock, The, 4. 

Reade, Charles, 46, 47, 49, 52, 92, 

130. ^S7> 191. 195. 198, 199 f-. 20S> 
216, 224 f., 231, 249, 270, 273, 279, 
287. 

Rebecca and Rowena, 62 n., 78 n., 79. 

Renaissance in Italy, The, 15, 124. 

Reynard the Fox, 2, 82. 

Rhoda Fleming, 162, 241 f., 256, 274. 

Richard Feverel, 163, 216, 257 n., 274. 

Richardson, Samuel, 510. 

Romance of the Rose, The, 82. 

Romola, 151, 252, 274, 305. 

Rose and the Ring, The, 63 n., 79. 

Rostand, Edmond, 78, 256 n. 

Saintsbury, George, 60, 129. 

Sandra Belloni, 154, 155, 190, 254, 

255 f- 
Satire, i, 2, 4, 5 f., 10, 11 f., 19 f., 

32 f., 41 f., 48 f., 50 f., 59, 82 f., 

86 f., 167 f., 179 f., 229 f., 278, 289, 

293 ff. 
Satire Menippee, La, 169. 



334 



INDEX 



Scenes from Clerical Life, 88. 

Scott, Sir Walter, 46, 49. 

Scourge of Villainy, The, 12, 17. 

Seneca, 169. 

Sense and Sensibility, 246, 303. 

Seven Satires, 9. 

Shakespeare, William, 39, 49, 67 n., 

73 n., 286. 
Shaving of Shagpat, The, 63 n., 78, 

80, 81, 307 n. 
Shaw, G. B., II n., 65 n., 71, 78, 228, 

315- 
Shelley, P. B., 49, 51 n., 171, 177. 
Sherman, S. P., 287. 
Ship of Fools, The, 21 n. 
Shirley, 50, 131, 180, 184, 198, 203, 

210 f. 
Sidgwick, Henry, 18. 
Silas Marner, 203, 253, 291. 
Sir Harry Hotspur, 209. 
Skelton, John, 21 n., 48, 169, 301. 
Sketches and Travels, 272. 
Small House at Allington, The, 217 n. 
Smollett, Tobias, 48, ixi, 126, 193. 
Socrates, 59. 

Southey, Robert, 59, 171, 173, 177. 
Spectator, The, No. 451, 176. 
Spenser, Edmund, 48. 
Spingarn, J. E., 4. 
Steele, Richard, 127. 
Steele Glas, The, 25. 
Stephen, Leslie, 43, 123. 
Sterne, Laurence, 49, 89, iii. 
Stevenson, R. L., 3iof., 313. 
Swift, Jonathan, 4, 9 n., 22 n., 48, 

70, 128, 14s, 2CX), 204, 280. 
Sybil, 136, 189, 194 n., 195, 198, 210, 

306. 
Symonds, J. A., 15, 124. 

Taine, H. A., 11 n., 23, 27, 272 n., 

273, 278. 
Tale of Two Cities A, 88, 244. 



Tancred, 135 f., 170, 194, 225. 
Task, The, 17 n., 18, 33. 
Tatlock, J. S. P., 122 n. 
Tennyson, Alfred, 35, 48, 313. 
Thackeray, W. M., 46, 48, 50, 51 n., 
S3, 61, 62, 77, 78, 79, 81, 82, 92 f., 

116, 130, 148, IS7, 169, 170, 174 f., 
183, 187, 189, 191, 205, 206, 209, 
217, 219, 231, 23s, 240, 2430., 
244, 24s, 247, 249, 251, 256, 258, 
270, 272, 273, 278, 289, 28s, 286, 
306, 309. 

Thirlwall, Connop, 1 21. 

Thorndike, A. H., 44 f. 

Tom Jones, 9, 25, 37 n., 78. 

Tragic Comedians, The, 162. 

Traill, H. D., 191. 

Transcripts and Studies, 191. 

Trollope, Anthony, 46, 48, 51, 52, 66, 
84, 89 f., 92, 117, 130, 157, 174, 
183, 187, 190, 191, 198, 202 f., 207, 
209, 219, 221, 222, 231, 235, 237, 
240, 243 n., 244, 245, 256, 260, 263, 
270, 271, 273, 276, 278, 279, 285, 
287, 302, 307, 309. 

Trueborn Englishman, The, 12 n., 17, 
22. 

Twain, Mark, 48, 76. 

Twelfth Night, 78. 

Two Years Ago, 248 n., 252 n. 

Universal Passion, The, 18, 33, 80 n. 
Unsocial Socialist, An, II n. 
Up to Midnight, 246 n. 
Utopia, 68. 

Van Doren, Carl, 67 n. 

Van Laun, H., 169. 

Vanity Fair, 78, 88, .92 f., loi, 149, 

17s, 183, 286. 
Victoria, Queen, Sj. 
Victorian, 42, 43, 44, 45, 61, 84, 112, 

117, 129, 170, 180, 226, 230, 231, 



INDEX 



335 



239» 259. 272, 274, 277, 286, 287, 
296, 306, 310, 311, 3 IS, 316. 

Victorians, The, 61, 158, 179, 180, 

191, 203, 217, 227, 228, 270, 274, 

27s, 287, 288, 295, 304, 306, 313, 

314.315- 
Villette, 211 f., 218, 260. 
Virgil, 49. 

Virginians, The, 311. 
Vittoria, 98, 155, 282 n. 
Voltaire, 38 n., 48, 301. 
Voyage of Captain Popanilla, The, 

62 n., 74, 81, 189, 194 n., 202. 

Walker, Hugh, 67 n., 78 n. 
Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 191 n. 
Warden, The, 207, 209 f., 222. 
Way of All Flesh, The, 65 n., 68, 147 f., 
215 n., 218. 



Way We Live Now, The, 240 f., 263 f. 

Wells, H.G., 73, 315. 

Wendell, Barrett, 29 n. 

What Will He Do with It?, 91 f., 1 12 f., 

272. 
Wit, 59, 83, 86, iiof. 
Wives and Daughters, 112, 131, 249. 
Wolsey, Cardinal, 169. 
Wordsworth, William, 49, 171. 
Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 48. 
Wyclif, John, 49. 

Yeast, 132, 186, 2130., 221, 236 n., 

260, 298 f., 299. 
Yellowplush Papers, The, 62 n., 79, 

103, 174. 
Yonge, Charlotte, 46. 
Young Duke, The, 134 f., 189, 198 n. 
Young, Edward, 9, 18, 33, 49, 80 n. 



Printed in the United States of America 



VITA 

Frances Theresa Russell was born in Iowa in 1873, and in 
1895 received the degree of Ph. B. from the State University. 
The year of 1898-99 was spent in graduate study at Rad- 
cliffe, her major subject up to this time being Latin. 

In 1900 she married Dr. Frank Russell, of the Depart- 
ment of Ethnology of Harvard University, and during the 
remainder of his life was engaged in the study of Anthro- 
pology. 

In 1906 she became assistant in Philosophy at the Leland 
Stanford Junior University, and in 1907, assistant in Eng- 
lish. She was appointed Instructor in the English Depart- 
ment in 1908, and Assistant Professor in 1916. For the 
next two years she was registered as a graduate student in 
the English Department of Columbia University, and in 
1919 resumed her work at Stanford University, California. 



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